


Changing Channels

by mitdemadlerimherzen



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, In-universe AU, Slow Burn, canonical an otherwise, idk what else to tag this, tagging to be safe, technically not necessary to know the movie, the kimi no na wa au nobody asked for but i wrote anyway, there's swearing in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28358961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitdemadlerimherzen/pseuds/mitdemadlerimherzen
Summary: "Jyn is looking out of the ship onto the very green surface of the planet below. Her heart is pounding, has been since she boarded the shuttle on Jedha this morning and has about reached the point where she doesn't think it can possibly pound any harder."OR: the kimi no na wa AU no one asked for but I wrote anyway.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 58
Kudos: 32





	1. All These Screams Simulate

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who are not familiar with the anime "Your Name"/"Kimi No Na Wa", it might be a bit weird in the beginning, just try to roll with it. : ) My test audience didn't know the film either and it still worked, so I'm half-optimistic that it's comprehensible without having seen it. Kay would probably have some statistics on that, but I don't.
> 
> Furthermore, I apologise in advance for what is likely an excessive amount of commas used in this. My only excuse is that I'm german and we don't know when to stop in regards to commas.
> 
> My eternal gratitude goes to moranice for proofreading, feedback and mental support!

_Sometimes... she feels like something is missing. She wakes up and it's on the back of her mind but then it's gone._

* * *

_Sometimes... he feels like he's looking for someone. They're there, in his dream, but the moment he wakes up they're gone._

* * *

He wakes up and the first thing he notices is the underside of a hammock above him. The second thing he notices is that his feet don't touch a wall or a ship's hull. His feet almost always touch a restricting surface at the end of whatever space he sleeps in because although he isn't the tallest person, neither is he short and he usually manages to wiggle down on every bed so that his feet collide with walls on a regular basis. But when he looks down at his feet he sees that he's lying in his very own hammock. He doesn't sleep in a hammock. 

He's also covered by an old looking, checkered, scratchy and entirely unfamiliar blanket. He rubs his eyes with one hand and frowns, his other hand reaching for his chest to rub an itching spot and he stops. Hesitantly touches the two soft mounds he encounters there. _What the hells?_ He looks down again, focusing not on his feet this time but further up his body and - _WHAT?_

There's an image at the back of his mind, like a dream and already fading, a girl with bright green eyes and she is tossing something to him, but the moment he tries to remember - the moment he looks down at the thing he caught, the memory dissolves.

* * *

Jyn wakes up from a loud snore coming from the hammock above hers. She grumbles sleepily, rolls her eyes as Smeik snores again (briefly considers kicking the guy's arse) and then sighs and swings her legs out from her own hammock and straight into her heavy combat boots. She takes a second to rub her eyes and blink around the dim room. Three more sentients are sleeping on their beds, in various states of undress and Jyn silently thanks Saw for the thousandth time that he didn't make her sleep in a room with Hagob, who prefers to sleep stark naked.

It is not a view she'd like to rise to every morning. Once woken from her snoring bunkmate, she knows that there's no going back to sleep and decides to make use of the unwanted extra time (she craves sleep a lot these days, but alas) and do a few training rounds before her day begins. She washes her face, brushes her teeth and leaves her quarters.

There's a calm quiet in the base today, most of the occupants asleep, the few that are not are probably going over their next battle plan again. Jyn likes it best like this, when no one bothers her and it's mostly silent for once. She doesn't see many people on her way to the training room but gets the feeling the few she passes by start whispering in her wake.

Well, that probably comes with being Saw's best soldier. She raises her chin and stomps along. Let them whisper. 

The training room is blessedly empty and she briefly dusts sand from various weapons and training equipment. On planets like this one, sand gets everywhere, always. She punches and kicks and swings her truncheon at the sandbags (isn't there a joke in here somewhere?) and nothing in particular for about an hour before she makes her way to breakfast.

They intercepted a medium-sized shipment of food the week before, so breakfast should be good. It always lifts the spirits of the whole base when there's proper food around. Of course it's still limited, you get your rationed portion, no sneaking to the fridge in the dead of night while mama and papa are asleep. She scowls and pushes the memories aside.

The room that passes for a mess is fairly empty and Jyn sits down at a small table in the back, relishing the (relatively) fresh fruit in her breakfast ration. She's halfway through the porridge sludge with jogan fruit topping when the two rickety chairs opposite her are pulled out and two bodies dump themselves into them - one with a tired, one with an anticipating sigh. 

"Aaaah, finally some good fucking food," Zatt, a green skinned Nautolan says and unceremoniously digs in.

Katooni, a well-mannered Tholothian, has the grace to greet Jyn first. "Morning, kid," she says and dunks her spoon into the mush.

They eat in silence for a moment until Zatt shoots Jyn a look and raises an eyebrow. "So, braid-experiment abandoned?" he asks, one side of his mouth pulling up into a half grin.

"Huh?" says Jyn dumbly. Katooni looks up, too, her eyes flicking from Jyn to Zatt and back to Jyn.

"Your," Zatt gestures vaguely at Jyn's head with his spoon, "your braid-experiment." Jyn's eyebrows draw together as she tries to make sense of his words, one of her hands absently going to her hair that's rolled into a semi-neat bun at the back of her head. "Yesterday you had your hair in a braid. I've never seen you wearing your hair in a braid since I've known you," Zatt elaborates, slowly chewing his fruit.

"I... what?" Jyn stumbles over her words, because she hasn't worn her hair in a braid since, well, since- never mind, and looks at Katooni in the hopes of the older woman laughing and declaring Zatt a right jokester. To Jyn's vague horror, Katooni just shrugs at her.

"It's true. You had your hair braided down your back and it was very neat, too," she says and Jyn narrows her eyes at the both of them, trying to detect the slightest hint of deception. There is none. They actually seem to believe what they're saying, as neither of them has ever been particularly good at lying. Their strengths lie elsewhere. 

In any case, Jyn is finished with her breakfast and if she's ever not been something it's idle. So she just shrugs the weirdness of that conversation off and goes in search of Saw. She finds him in the war room, where he likes to plan operations. He's talking a group of fellow soldiers through the next big plan and Jyn doesn't stay to listen, she already knows the schedule by heart as she was the one who came up with it. Her feet carry her back towards the training room she notes absently, but it's as good a place as any to be right now and maybe she'll even find some ass to kick.

Maia seems up for it, and they start a round of hand-to-hand combat. Jyn wins, she isn't Saw's best lieutenant for nothing, and Maia lies on the mat at her feet, looking contrite. 

"What," Jyn laughs lightly and extends a hand towards the other girl, "did you think you had a chance this time?"

"Might as well have, after yesterday," Maia grumbles but lets Jyn pull her to her feet.

"Yesterday?" Jyn prompts after the dark-skinned girl apparently won't elaborate on her own. Maia throws her a Look, her eyebrows drawn and her head slightly tilted.

"Oh, don't act like it didn't happen," she crosses her arms over her chest. "Ganodi won't shut up about it. He just regrets that no one made a holovid of it."

"Of what?" Jyn asks, not understanding a thing her friend is saying. 

"Jyyyyn..." Maia groans, her face contorted into that of a long suffering person and spreading her arms. "Come on, half the base saw it, there's no denying it happened."

 _What the hells,_ Jyn thinks, _happened yesterday?_

"Want to jog my memory?" she asks aloud, already somehow dreading the answer.

"You mean you're trying to tell me you mysteriously forgot how Ganodi sent you to the mat?" Maia asks incredulously and Jyn blanches.

_What?_

"What?"

Maia takes a step closer and tilts her head to look closely at Jyn, her dark eyes narrowing. Jyn feels the blood drain from her face and then rush back suddenly.

"You really don't remember?" Maia asks her quietly. "Did you hit your head or something?"

"You mean to tell me that I lost at hand-to-hand against that cheating, stupid, green jerk?" Jyn can mostly tell when people lie. And, like Katooni and Zatt that morning, Maia seems to be telling the truth.

Just when Jyn decides that she's maybe fallen into a parallel universe or something, the training room falls silent. Jyn looks around and there's Saw, standing in the entrance and looking imposing as ever.

"Jyn. Maia. Come," he rasps and turns without a word, knowing they'll follow. Jyn falls into step behind her surrogate father and Maia is at her side in a second. Saw leads them through the halls of the catacombs and into his war room. Jyn can still remember from when she was younger and Saw took her with him to the Rebel Alliance. They had a war room, too, but this one here is less fancy, more basic functionality, cables sticking out of every console and they only have a clumpy, graceless stone table in the middle, nothing like the smooth glass one that lit up as nine year old Jyn watched with wide eyes.

Maia closes the heavy steel door behind her as Saw turns around.

"You both know what to do tomorrow?" he asks in his wheezing voice and looks at both of them. 

"Yes," they both answer, although Jyn doesn't see the necessity in asking her that, it is her plan after all. Then again, Saw is the most paranoid person she knows, so it's absolutely in character.

"Good. This whole operation stands and falls with you," he announces and Jyn unconsciously straightens her pose a bit. "How did your training go?" he follows up then, because Saw may be a hardened soldier, but he cares about his people. He wants to know if they're not at their best.

Maia recounts their training and incredulously Saw's hard gaze zeroes in on Jyn while she does it. He searches Jyn's face, as if she is a book that he's just figuring out how to read. 

"... and then Jyn smacked me down on the mat," Maia finishes, throwing Jyn a reproachful look, as if it's her fault that Maia thought she could win against her, but Saw's expression seems to relax a tiny bit. Jyn frowns at him.

"Good to see you being back at your usual level," he comments and turns towards one of the consoles and Jyn is slowly getting angry now, because whatever happened yesterday, she doesn't remember braiding her hair, she doesn't remember _ever_ losing a fight against Ganodi, and she's kriffing tired of people treating her like she's lost her mind.

Maia seems to sense her mood, though, and touches Jyn's arm, likely stopping Jyn from snapping at Saw, which will probably do her no bad, but will certainly do her no good either. Jyn takes a deep breath and releases it _veeeeery_ slowly, turns on her heel and stalks out of the room.

"Jyn, you really don't remember yesterday at all?" Maia says out in the corridor, and Jyn whirls on her friend, anger surging up again.

"No, I don't! And if I didn't know that the lot of you are not exactly the galaxy's best liars, I would think this whole base is just playing one big prank on me!" she bursts out, expecting some kind of defensive reaction from the other girl, something she can turn around and maybe pick a real fight with. But Maia just stands there, her arms crossed over her chest, examining her fingernails with a bored expression.

"Are you finished?" she asks in an intentionally disinterested tone and Jyn scowls, because Maia has always had a knack for taking the wind out of Jyn's sails when the latter is purposely gearing up for a fight.

"Yes," Jyn grumbles and Maia's face relaxes into her normal, less bored features.

They make their way through the hallways of their base.

"So, you really don't remember?" Maia needles her again after a few minutes of silence.

"Do I _look_ like I remember?" Jyn fires back, then grimaces at her friend. It's not Maia's fault that everyone seems to remember a yesterday that Jyn doesn't. Well, probably.

"Maybe you're just stressed," Maia ventures and although Jyn knows her friend means to reassure her, she bristles. "I mean, your first self-devised plan coming up and everything."

Jyn mulls this over. Maybe she _is_ stressed. Not that she would ever admit it. "Aaah this planet sucks!" she exclaims, rounding a corner and startling a group of sentients who had been sticking their heads together conspiratorially. "Days are too hot," she laments.

Maia just nods along. "Nights are too cold."

"There's never enough food!"

"The sand gets everywhere."

"Let's go scout a final time," Jyn suggests mainly to distract herself from all this weirdness, but what she really proposes is 'let's go into the city and empty a few pockets, get some food and visit the temple'. Maia hears what Jyn means to say and they get their respective scarves, wrapping them around their heads to protect from the desert sun, and leave the base.

The city is about an hours' worth of walk through the open desert, but with their light brown clothes and scarves, they're difficult to spot unless someone scans the specific area through a sniperscope or binoculars. The city itself is bustling at this time of day, the marketplaces an easy hunting ground for two pickpockets. It doesn't take them long to gather enough credits for a small but filling snack. They buy a bag full of hot, fried croquettes and - weaving expertly through the pedestrians and avoiding the Stormtroopers - they make their way towards the old, half caved-in Temple of Kyber.

"Ah," a smooth, quiet voice greets them as they clamber through what was once the entrance and is now no more than an archway, the imposing doors kicked in months ago, as the Empire came to exploit what little this planet has to offer. "It's good to see you."

Jyn snickers a bit, because, well, for a blind man Chirrut really does make a lot of blind man jokes. She can almost _hear_ Baze rolling his eyes at his partner. The Guardians sit at the back of the spacious entrance hall, Chirrut has apparently been meditating - Jyn recognises his favourite posture - and Baze is just lounging at his side, cleaning his impressive weapon.

A few of the neighbourhood children are scattered a few steps away, some playing with stones, some wielding long sticks, trying to fight like Master Îmwe, looks like. Maia goes over to them and proceeds to correct a stance here, a grip on the stick there. Chirrut motions for Jyn to approach him and she obliges. He silently reaches for her hand, a reassuring smile on his face, and Jyn slides her slim fingers onto his open palm. 

"Good to have you back, little sister," he says serenely and Jyn frowns at him, tilting her head inquiringly and then her eyes slide over to Baze, the big man observing her quietly for a moment and then inclining his head in acknowledgement. If Jyn didn't know that they're always this weird she might be worried, but as it is this only serves the rest of this strange day (or was yesterday the strange day?). Chirrut drops her hand, disentangles his legs from his meditative posture, stands up and stretches for a moment, then sits back down on the rock he was perched on before, but his feet remain on the ground.

As if it's a secret sign, the children drop their stones, sticks and everything else and scramble about to sit at Chirrut's feet. Maia and Jyn hang back, giving the younger kids some space to rearrange themselves and then join them. They both always enjoyed the Guardians' lessons.

"The Force is with me, and I am with the Force," Chirrut traditionally begins his speech. "Let me tell you, my little brothers and sisters, about the Force Planet today, also called the Wellspring of all Life. It is said to be found at the heart of the galaxy, although no one has ever found it. Or maybe no one who found it has ever returned..."

Later that night, as Jyn lies in her hammock and browses through her datapad, fiddling with the crystal at her neck, she's still thinking about Chirrut's story. She taps the file on her pad closed and notices a new file on her start screen.

"Unnamed."

She can't remember saving a new file, and even less one she neither named, nor encrypted. Curious, she klicks it open. The file is a text document, containing three words only:

_Who are you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the names are borrowed from SW canon and my favourite books.


	2. Lives That No Longer Take Place

Jyn doesn't wake up from a snoring roommate the next morning. It's a beeping sound, like a datapad alarm that raises her from sleep. She tries to ignore it, her pad is usually set to mute, but the beeping resumes, so it has to be one of her roommates' pads. And then she becomes aware of the general silence (apart from the beeping). There's no rustling of fabric as one of her roommates turns around in their sleep, no feet dragging through the corridor, the piece of cloth that hangs in front of the opening to her room dulling no sound at all.

The next thing that registers is the feeling of lying relatively flat, her feet touching a rough, hard surface. She is not lying in her hammock. That startles her to open her eyes.

She looks around the room and then scrambles up in a hurry, staring at her unfamiliar surroundings. What she knows: she's in a tiny room, with one bunk (not a hammock, but a small bed with a flat pillow and a thin blanket), one tiny table set against the wall across from the bed, a chair pushed under the table, a small rectangular piece of furniture that might just be a closet and two doors, one on the opposite side from the maybe-closet and one set across from the bed, beside the table.

Jyn's mind is racing. Did the Imps get her? Throw her in a cell? But no, unlikely, Imperial prison cells tend to be less furnished. Or, more precisely, not furnished at all. Wouldn't want their prisoners to feel like sentient beings, deserving of basic comfort, like a blanket, clean clothes, or-

An idea jumps into her head and she hesitantly opens the door across from the bed. And almost squeals in delight when it reveals a tiny little room containing a toilet, a basin and a shower.

She must be dreaming, she decides, and then proceeds to make good use of her dream home and take advantage of the fresher, intending to take a shower (with real actual water! The last time she had a water shower was- but she doesn't go there) and has to stop abruptly, glancing in the small mirror above the sink. The face of a human boy, or a young man at most, only a few years older than her, stares back at her and for a moment she forgets she's dreaming and whirls around, assuming a defensive stance, fists raised, feet planted but there's no one there.

She turns back to the mirror and there's the dude again, but that's it. It's only him, not Jyn herself and - is that an actual window? But no, the fresher and the room behind her is the one she is in and then she frowns and the guy in the mirror does, too, and wait-

"What?"

She raises her hand to her face experimentally and the boy - man, whatever - does, too. And Jyn realises with shock that she can feel actual stubble at her chin, just barely, but still there. Her body relaxes and she looks down at herself and she's actually a good head and a half further from the floor than she is used to. Also, she's only clad in boxer shorts and the legs that are attached to her body are long, thin (defined muscles, though), hairy, and definitely not hers. She grasps at her chest, flat - okay, her actual chest isn't big either, thank the Force, that would be so inconvenient in combat - but definitely not person with small boobs-flat. More like no boobs at all-flat. What the hell? Why is she dreaming to be a guy? Oh, Maia would have a field day if she knew of this dream and Jyn immediately decides not to tell her. A vague thought hits her and she slides her hand over her stomach, a bit lower, a bit lower. Well.

Okay, so she's a guy right now, whatever. She shrugs, sheds her - his?? - clothes and enjoys the feeling of clean warm water on her, his, whatever, body. She finds a razor on a little shelf above the sink but after a glance into the mirror she decides not to risk that. And then she takes a longer look at her face, because there's something that catches her eye. Brown hair, slightly longer than fashionable, sharp, dark eyes, unremarkable nose, thin lips and a bit of stubble on the chin and along the jaw. Her skin is tan, a few shades darker than her real one (although that's not hard) but nowhere near as dark as Maia's. She blinks at herself in the mirror, tests a few grimaces, noting the nice, small teeth, not like her own, slightly too big front teeth. In the closet she finds clean clothes, her dream self seems to have the luxury of not only a private room with a water shower, but also at least three sets of fairly nondescript but highly functional, civilian clothes. Jyn decides she likes this dream.

She finds the datapad, which has thankfully stopped beeping sometime during her exploration and is now flashing a tiny green light at the front, indicating a message alert. Jyn tries to open it up, but it doesn't accept her password. Hm. She's on the verge of trying to slice the thing when there's a knock on the door - the one not hiding her fresher.

Curious, she opens up and then scrambles back in horror, completely forgetting she's in a dream and reaching for her truncheon - which isn't there - and then furiously looking for something, _anything!,_ to use as a weapon against the monster of a droid that is currently stepping over the threshold and into her space and there's a blaster in a nook over the bed but she can't reach it before-

The huge black droid with the Imperial crest on its shoulders grasps both her wrists and turns her around so her back is to his front and holds her arms (which are longer in this body, and bigger, but seemingly not much stronger than her actual own arms, back asleep in her hammock, and _why is this a nightmare now?_ It started out so well) crossed over her chest and traps her there.

"Your erratic heart rate and unusually harsh breathing indicate that you are in a state of terror," the thing says, it's voice strangely un-droid-like, though she can't actually put her finger on why, and before Jyn can snap 'you got that right, you overlarge mess of circuits', it continues, "I am using our tried and tested method to calm you down after a particularly bad nightmare."

And, surprisingly, Jyn stops struggling and turns her head to look up at it. "What?"

"Protocol 0202. When you are disoriented from one of your nightmares I am to calm you down by holding you like this, preventing you from hurting others and yourself," the droid says matter-of-factly, as if it's simply reeling off some programmed orders. Which, when she thinks about is, it probably is. "You can't hurt me," it adds unnecessarily, like an afterthought.

It is also not trying to hurt or kill her, which is odd to say the least, for an Imperial Security droid. _What a kriffing strange dream,_ she thinks and with that thought comes an idea.

"Are you my droid, then?" she asks, trying to slow her still-pounding heart. If that droid detected her heart rate the second she opened her door to him then it's very likely it won't let her go as long as her heart pumps like this. 

"I am no one's droid," it answers and Jyn thinks she can hear actual contempt in its voice. "You made that very clear in your reprogram."

_My?_ Okay, maybe she can work with this.

"I'm still a bit... disoriented. Tell me, who am I again?" she ventures. Might as well play along in this weird dream. 

"You are Lieutenant Cassian Andor of Rebel Intelligence," the droid reports and now _that_ is a revelation. "You are also running late for your briefing, which is why I came by your quarters."

"My briefing?" Jyn asks, frowning and now that her heart is blessedly slowing again and her brain seems to be able to function a bit more, due to the fact that this droid seems to be disinclined to harm her, she notes that her voice is that of a young man, too. _Only figures,_ she thinks, but still. It's a nice voice with an accent she can't really place, maybe mid-rim.

"Your briefing with General Draven, scheduled for 0800. It is now 0750 and you require approximately seven minutes to reach the briefing room. Your heartrate seems to have regained a normal frequency. I suggest you hurry."

The droid lets her go and Jyn turns and takes a first good look at it. It's a standard KX model, huge, black and - usually - absolutely deadly. How in the hells is a KX droid working on a rebel base? But first things first. Her subconscious apparently wants her to go to a briefing.

"Can you show me the way?" she asks and the droid tilts its head just the tiniest bit, and she gets the impression that he would be frowning at her if he could. 

" _I_ have to be at the communications hub, transferring data for our next mission. But your briefing is held in sector C, briefing room 3-P, as usual," the droid informs her, stressing the 'I', as if to say 'I have more important things to do than escorting a confused dreamer around an unfamiliar rebel base'.

Jyn shrugs, "Alright," because, really, it's her dream, what's the worst that can happen? She is either going to be late to the briefing or she's not. She reaches out to take the blaster from the wall above the bed and after a quick appraising look she sticks it into the holster at her waist. She grimaces and steps around the droid and is about to move out of the door when the thing speaks again.

"Cassian?" it asks, although it sounds more like it's stating a fact. Jyn remembers that's her name and turns and looks back at its imposing figure. "Are you feeling alright? Your facial expressions are more exaggerated than usual."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good," she says and waves her hand vaguely through the air. The droid's optics whir but it seems to accept her answer and she starts walking again, has a thought, stops and turns again. "What's your name?" 

The droid makes another whirring sound, this time from within his chassis and she sees its optics glance down her body and up again. "Is this some sort of security question?"

"Yeah, if you like," Jyn shrugs again.

"I am K-2SO, Imperial Security droid," it says and Jyn is about to leave it at that and go. "I was captured and reprogrammed by you. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yeah, you, uh, passed the test," she answers and takes off down the corridor.

"Cassian," the droid, K-2SO, calls again, he's left the room, her room, and is standing in the corridor now. "The briefing room is the other way."

Jyn turns around and she swears she can feel his optics on her back the whole way along the corridor.

* * *

There are no helpful signs along her way, along what she now identifies as massive stone walls, the ground under her feet varies, some of it seems to be the same sort of stone as the walls, some is more earthy. No sand, though. She passes a lot of people of multiple species on her aimless way through the corridors, some of whom are wearing flightsuits, some wearing rank badges, some not, but all of them seem busy, walking briskly with clipboards or mechanical gear in their hands. Lots of bustling droids, too.

She wanders around for a good while, peeking inside doors, trying to get a hang of directions and the size of the place, until a voice behind her calls "Andor!" and then a hand touches her shoulder. 

She turns around to face whoever dared to touch her and finds herself at eye level (and isn't _that_ a not unwelcome new experience, to be at eye level) with a young man of about her - this body's - height. He has dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin and is wearing a flightsuit. And, yes, he's the one who called out- Andor, that's her name, right? Cassian Andor?

"Where have you been? Brief should've started half an hour ago, we tried to comm you but you didn't answer-"

This guy is obviously a talkative one. Jyn ventures a guess. "Draven?" That is who K-2SO had said was expecting him in the briefing, right?

"Yeah, Draven is livid, although I think he's more worried," the dude prattles on. Jyn lets him talk for another minute, but he doesn't come forward with anything useful. There goes her idea of playing spy on the rebel base, because she can do whatever she wants, right?

She seizes her chance as the guy makes a pause. "And you are...?" she asks imploringly.

The guy blinks at her. "Andor, what-"

Jyn just raises her eyebrows at him.

"I'm Kes. Dameron. You know me, we sometimes eat together," he says, frown on his features and eyes flitting over her face, probably searching for some sign that says 'I'm actually a girl from the Partisans'. The guy then looks left and right as if to check that they're alone and leans in, lowering his voice. "I am supposed to be your backup pilot for Coruscant."

Coruscant momentarily makes her pause. She doesn't have a lot of good memories from Coruscant. Dameron is still looking at her expectantly and she shakes her head slightly, as if to get her thoughts into some kind of order.

"Well, lead the way, then," she says and gestures for him to precede her. "Briefing room 3-P, is it?"

This seems to calm some of Dameron's suspicions and he starts walking down the corridor, Jyn, in the body of Cassian Andor, following. Dameron fumbles with a comm for a moment and then she hears him say "General, I found him. We're on our way to the scheduled room now."

She can't hear what the General answers but it seems to be short, because her guide (pilot?) packs his comm away again and addresses her. "So, you going to tell me why you're running late?"

"I had a run-in with an Imperial Security droid," she hears herself say. "Apart from that I couldn't find section C."

Dameron looks at her from the side, one eyebrow raised. "You couldn't find-"

For some reason she feels defensive. How the many hells is she supposed to find her way in a place she's never been to before? "Well, everything looks the same here." And why does Dameron latch onto her not finding her way, rather than her mentioning an Imperial Droid.

Dameron narrows his eyes at her but then gives a tiny shrug. "Fair enough," he says, "It's not like we spend a lot of time on base anyway."

They walk in silence for a few minutes, while Jyn ponders Dameron's wistful comment. She's starting to wonder what sort of missions her dream self gets sent out to, when they stop before a heavy door and Dameron knocks before stepping inside. Jyn follows.

The room is nondescript, a small holotable (nothing like the big imposing thing she remembers from the Alliance's war room), a few chairs that are seemingly being ignored by the three people in this room. One of them is a young man with long, dark hair that's gathered into a tail at the nape of his neck, he's wearing a flightsuit similar to that of Dameron, a helmet with the insignia of the Rebel Alliance under his arm. Next to him is a young woman, not much older than Jyn probably, with medium dark skin and dark wild hair. She, too, is wearing a flightsuit and carrying a helmet.

They are talking to a tall man with light skin and red hair and a General's rank badge at his chest. This must be the guy she was supposed to meet for her briefing then. He has the air of a no-nonsense type of guy and Jyn is immediately weary of him, although she can't put her finger on why. Saw, after all, has never exactly been a cuddling guy either.

The three people nod at each other curtly and the two pilots turn towards the door, the ponytail guy's eyes lighting up as he sees Jyn - Cassian. "Hey, Cass," he greets in a friendly way and Jyn has the unsettling feeling of meeting someone familiar while being absolutely certain that she has never seen this man before in her life.

"Hey," she says anyway, forcing a smile, while Dameron raises his hand in greeting and says, a bit too enthusiastically to be smooth, "Hey Shara."

The woman throws them both a friendly smile but says nothing.

"We'll be standing by on your mission," Dameron says and jerks his thumb at Shara. 

"Hopefully we won't, won't need you, though, right?" ponytail says. Jyn notices that he's fidgeting with his hands, knotting his fingers together and separating them again, like he can't keep his body entirely still.

"Errr, right," Jyn answers and follows with a nervous laugh.

They all stare at her now. "Lieutenant," the stuck-up dude in the back says then and Dameron and Shara exit the room and Jyn and ponytail guy step closer.

The man - he is on the older side compared to the pilots, at least older than Cassian Andor seems to be, maybe late thirties - launches into some sort of mission briefing immediately and Jyn tries her best to follow. What she gathers is: Cassian - she - is supposed to infiltrate an Imperial office building, ponytail guy - whom the General addresses as "Rook" and is that some kind of a nickname, or a pilot's callsign or his actual name? - being his pilot.

They are sent to a sort of wardrobe room next, and pick out a pair of Imperial uniforms, Rook choosing an Imperial pilot's jumpsuit and Jyn picking a nondescript, grey Imperial officer's uniform. They make their way into the hangar and for the first time Jyn can't help but stare. The Alliance owns a really impressive assortment of spaceships. Besides X- and U-Wings there is an unidentifiable number of bigger and smaller ships of the most diverse models. The fact that they all look more or less dilapidated is made up by the sheer variety. Saw's fleet can't compare to this.

Her mission partner leads her to a small Imperial craft - leaving her wondering if the Alliance has actual missions for stealing Imperial ships or if they came by this by chance - where a tall black figure is already waiting. Well, if she's to infiltrate an Imperial office building, she supposes an Imperial Security droid might be the best cover she can wish for.

"Hey, Kay," the pilot greets the droid. 

"Hello Bodhi Rook," K-2SO says. So this is probably not the first mission they're working together then and it's also her question about her pilot's name answered.

They enter the ship, Bodhi and K-2SO taking their places in the pilot and copilot seat, Jyn finding a seat behind the two, buckling herself in.

And then they're off.

* * *

Jyn was very young when her parents left Coruscant, but the tall, shiny buildings make her shiver involuntarily either way. She remembers them from high up, too, looking out of a window and trying to make out the tiny dots of beings on the street below. The air traffic lanes, small crafts zooming by the apartment they lived in. They're just flashes of images, but still the memories manage to incite a vague feeling of fear. Jyn did not like Coruscant.

Despite herself, Jyn is a bit nervous when she and Kay enter the Imperial building. It's just a minor office building, nothing exactly important, but still, Jyn can count the number of times she's been undercover in Imperial installations on one hand and at least all of those times she had been in her own skin. She misses her truncheons.

They enter through the front door, her key card (whoever forged this, they're _good_ ) granting her and her personal security droid access. Bodhi let her borrow his datapad during the flight, containing all the mission info, and Jyn knows where to go for once today.

They make their way through hallways, no one glancing at her twice (marvellous) and find the room they're looking for without problems. Jyn inserts a datastick into a console and flips through files upon files until she finds what she's tasked to look for. The protection on the data is laughable (at least in her opinion) and she downloads the sensitive information in what Kay informs her is record time.

This whole operation would've gone without a hitch if not for the fact that Jyn is still Jyn, no matter the dream or the body she's in. So, the moment they're out of the office building and at the nearest corner, she tells Kay to run.

If he was going to argue with her he's stopped short by a sudden explosion. They run while in their wake sirens begin to blare.

"What happened?" Bodhi's worried voice crackles over the comm. "Cassian?"

"Explosion!" Jyn shouts over the general noise on the streets and the whining of the alarms, the trampling of boots on the ground. It is pure chaos. Sentients run from the crumbling building while Imperial forces run towards it, a few officers in grey uniforms like Jyn's still come running out of the building. The alarms don't drone out the rest of the noise, the scared screams and the sounds of hundreds of people on the move.

She and Kay hurry through the streets, only slowing whenever a group of Troopers crosses their path, Jyn taking advantage of her disguise, revelling in the invisibility. 

"What did you do?" Kay asks her incredulously as they round a corner and the tiny private port where their shuttle is waiting comes into view and she can't stop it, she laughs.

They enter the port, Jyn working hard to contain her glee and look bored while the guard scans her docs and waves them through. 

Once they're in the shuttle and Bodhi punches them into hyperspace, she cracks and actually _whoops._ "That was amazing!" she shouts, while Bodhi turns in the pilot's seat to grace her with an incredulous look. 

"Cass, what..." he doesn't seem to know what to say or maybe what to ask first, he opens and closes his mouth a few times and then finishes with "... happened?"

Jyn grins at him and produces the datastick from her pocket. "Got the intel and as a thank you I left them a few explosives."

Bodhi gapes at her. "You? You mean that... did you? Where did you- _how?"_

Jyn's grin, impossibly, widens and she explains how she smuggled a few detonators inside her boots into the office building and while the data copied to her datastick and Kay stood guard at the door, she hid and primed them.

Bodhi mimes a fish again when she finishes and Kay just states "That was not in the mission objective."

"Oh, let me have some fun, will you?" she counters good-naturedly, knocking her fist against Kay's arm in a companionable way, while Bodhi can't seem to stop staring at her.

"What is _wrong_ with you today, Cass?" he wonders aloud and Jyn has the barest flashback to her own yesterday, when her comrades told her she'd been behaving strangely the day before.

The feeling is gone as fast as it came, though, and Jyn just shrugs and sinks down on the copilot seat, pretty damn happy with herself.

* * *

That night, Jyn lies awake in Cassian's bed and slices into his datapad. The encryption is actually a bit of a challenge to her for once, although nothing she can't crack. There's not a lot of personal data on there, no messages from friends or family, only General Draven and a few others that read like official rebel business.

She reads those messages for a while, then hacks into some of the most recent mission briefing files. Lieutenant Cassian Andor seems to be a spy who gathers intelligence, often undercover in Imperial installations.

There's not a lot on his pad all in all, she guesses he - she? It's still her dream, right? - deletes most of his reports after sending them to his superiors.

Remembering the mysterious file on her own pad back in her hammock, she opens a new text file and writes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uuuh, just a heads up, this fic is completely written and edited and I've decided to post on sundays, that should accomodate my schedule best. (For final read throughs and all.)
> 
> Also don't mind the edgy chapter titles, it's my own private inside joke with myself.
> 
> Oh, and I know now that Kes Dameron isn't a pilot in canon, but I found that out by accident after this was done and decided to screw canon. : )


	3. Can This Be What We've Become

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S SUNDAY! You know what that means: I try to bake and fail, lol.
> 
> Anyway, here's chapter 3.

Cassian wakes up with his feet pressing against the stone wall at the end of the bed and his face pressed into the pillow, five urgent messages from Draven blinking angrily up at him when he opens up his datapad.

2130: "Report for debrief, 2200"

2202: "Where are you?"

2204: "Turn on your commlink, Lieutenant."

2205: "Andor, this is not optional."

2205: "Debrief rescheduled for 0800."

"What..." 

* * *

Cassian has never seen Draven look so livid. Correction: Cassian has never seen Draven look so livid at _him._ The General rants at him for about 22 minutes (he knows this, because Kay informs him of the fact afterwards) and Cassian gathers that he was on a mission the day before (of which he has no memories) and apparently, and these are Draven's actual words, _'fucked shit up',_ which Cassian would find hilarious if he wasn't internally panicking.

Draven also wants a written report within the hour and Cassian has no idea how he will provide one, because, well, whatever Draven thinks happened yesterday, Cassian doesn't remember any of it.

Naturally, he asks Kay, the doid providing a detailed report of the events and Cassian decides that the world has just gone mad. His superior yelled at him, his droid friend recites the whole damn mission he remembers getting assigned for (but not carrying it out) and flat out tells him he blew an Imperial office building to dust and kriffing laughed about it.

(In reality, Cassian thinks, he might have laughed about this, might have felt that blowing up an Imperial installation just for the heck of it might have gotten a reaction like that out of him, when he was younger, before he got all that blood on his hands, before- well, _before._ )

(Before he was alone and had to grow up way too fast, before he gave his skills and life to a cause that required committing atrocities of him, that- no, nevermind.)

He and Kay return to his quarters while he still ponders if he should go see a medic and get himself checked out for head injuries. He grabs his datapad, telling Kay to recount the previous day's events again in detail, because he has to get _some_ kind of report to Draven or else, and stops.

Kay prattles on but Cassian barely hears him. There's a file on his pad. A file from the previous evening. Cassian clicks it open. It looks like some sort of code and he desperately hopes he's simply suffering from elective amnesia and he'd had a stroke of paranoia last night and encrypted his report in this file. 

He works on the code for about ten minutes and thinks if it's his own code, he should probably do better than he is. Kay either hasn't noticed that Cassian's attention is elsewhere, or he doesn't care apparently, the droid is still talking. But his voice soothes some of Cassian's nerves, the absolute quiet has never been particularly calming to him and he finally cracks the defense of the code.

There's a text document on his screen now. It is _not_ his report. Well, it _is,_ but he can't imagine writing something like this. Ever.

_Today was really kriffing fun. It started out so weird, I still can't believe my subconscious came up with something like this when usually my dreams consist of random scenes and blurry faces on Coruscant, Lah'mu or wherever else. It felt so fucking_ real. _Was a bit strange to have a male human body, too, but hells, at least I didn't dream to be a Wampa or something really weird. I wonder if the Alliance really is like that or if my mind built it from the handful of times I visited._  
 _Also, the people here seem not so different to my comrades, they're maybe a bit more organised, there's apparently lots of reports in written form going around. Bureaucratic shit like that._  
 _The few people I met are kind of nice, though, apart from the scowling red haired dude, who for some reason creeps me out. Bodhi seems a bit nervous in general but he's kind of sweet. Probably an absolutely reliable guy. Oh and don't get me started about the droid! Who in all the kriffing hells keeps an imperial security droid as a pet? Okay, he was pretty useful today, I was sort of glad to have him on my side while sneaking around the imperial offices. Maybe I should get us one, too, for infiltration ops or something. Could be good. He can do a lot of damage too, I'll bet._  
 _Although, both Kay and Bodhi seemed really shocked (as far as a droid can communicate shock, haha) about me blowing up that office. I guess the Alliance doesn't do stuff like that. There seems to be a lot of sneaking around for intel, instead of actually hurting these bastards._  
 _Ah well, can't have everything. Regular meals and an actual private room with a fresher. I can only hope I'll dream to be Cassian Andor again someday, if only to enjoy this luxury._

Cassian stares at his pad in shock. 

* * *

Jyn is slowly getting annoyed with the looks her fellow soldiers give her. This is not about being Saw's right hand anymore, it's not about being his best fighter, his best slicer or anything to do with her, really, because the operation they were planning, the one she had come up with personally, the one she'd been giddy about has been a success all over and she can't kriffing remember it.

Well, almost a complete success, at least they accomplished what they set out for, but after talking to Maia, Jyn thinks she might be losing her mind. Apparently she, Jyn, had a bit of a blackout during the op. 

"You didn't remember the exact steps, Jyn. Also, your slicing... well you got there in the end, but I thought you said you could do it in under twenty secs and, well, twenty-five is not under twenty. We were almost blown," Maia tells her around a spoonful of mush (no fruit, they'll have to go out and hijack a transport again soon), an incredulous look on her face.

Jyn buries her face in her hands and groans. "What is happening to me?"

"You also thought Saw was my dad," Maia says.

When she logs into her datapad, she finds files from the previous day, accounts and lists of things she doesn't remember writing down. 

* * *

Cassian almost gets used to waking up to the underside of a hammock every few days. He also gets used to the pain in his - her - body after training, the sting in his cheek when one of Jyn's training buddies gets a hit in. He's actually getting better at hand-to-hand combat, a fact that he secretly enjoys even if Jyn's friend Maia keeps telling him he's let up.

He gets used to people whispering behind his back, gets used to the big dark man pushing him to be better at - well, everything. He gets used to answering to Jyn's name and to the base she calls home.

What he doesn't get used to, however, is the body hygiene. It's bad enough he has to look up at most people in this base, but washing is making him incredibly uncomfortable and he's actually thankful that this installation seems to lack the luxury of water showers and he has to make do with sonic ones instead, which don't require him to actually touch him- her? It's not as if he's afraid to touch another person's body, more like it's not _his_ body and he feels queasy at the thought of touching Jyn without permission and even more so at the thought of asking for said permission from her, even if it's only for washing. 

This feeling gets worse the more he learns. Apparently, Jyn is a girl from a rebel cell that is operating from - where exactly he doesn't know - a desert planet and literally _from_ the desert. It's hot during the day, it's cold during the night, there's sand everywhere and he - she - lives in what looks like ancient ruins repurposed for whatever needs these rebels have.

Well, it could be worse. He could be switching bodies with a Stormtrooper or something like that. 

All in all, Cassian concludes, this is real. Jyn is a real person with a real life, just as he is back with the Alliance. On those days when he's in her body she seems to be in his, too, and after that disastrous first mission when she blew the Imperial office building up, she has seemingly been trying to not wreck his life completely.

They leave each other messages, write up reports about their day when they're the other, and keep each other up to date with their lives (ops, missions) in case they'll wake up in the wrong body again.

_"Cassian, if you find yourself technically at a disadvantage in a fight you just have to punch harder!"_

_"Jyn, do not, I repeat, DO NOT EVER flirt with Kes again, the looks Shara has been giving me..."_

_"You need to loosen up a bit, sometimes I think Kay is more organic than you."_

_"Force Jyn, can't you be more careful! A broken wrist is really not funny."_

_"It was your hand that punched that idiot pilot mouthing off about Bodhi."_

_"I am literally begging you, please never call Draven a nerf herder again."_

Cassian has no idea how exactly this is happening, or why but the way the others react after a switch day makes it clear to him that it's real, it's happening and he can just try to keep his head and get through this.

Sometimes he finds himself fiddling with the stone hanging from the cord around his neck and debating if he should tell someone, Kay, Bodhi or even Kes. But somehow he's not ready to do that and who would believe him anyway?

When he wakes up as himself in his private little room, the memories of being Jyn fade faster the more he tries to hold onto them.

* * *

Jyn tries - she _really_ does - to act more like what Cassian tells her in his messages. But Bodhi's grown on her, being a reliable pilot and a good friend it seems, not to mention he may be even better at sabacc than her, and when she sees him being bullied by some Intel guys (probably thinking they're better than him), she loses her nerve.

A moment later two of the guys are lying on the floor, one clutching his shoulder (dislocated), one developing a nice fist shaped bruise over his eye and the third one still standing but holding up his hands in surrender.

When they're back in Cassian's quarters, Bodhi sitting on the rickety chair, Jyn - Cassian - on his bunk, a bag of ice slowly melting on his knuckles, she asks Bodhi why they were doing it.

"I went to the Imperial flight academy," Bodhi says quietly and Jyn senses there's more, so she keeps quiet. "When I graduated, they recruited me as a cargo pilot. But I defected. I joined the Empire to provide for my family, but while I was away, training, they attacked my homeplanet and my family got killed. Or lost, I don't really know, it's not as if they keep records about the casualties of the innocent, and... and I never found out."

He pauses, closes his eyes. Jyn ponders patting his hand, she's not particularly good at comforting others, but perhaps neither is Cassian, because Bodhi doesn't seem to mind her silence.

"I went back home, tried to find my parents, my cousins, anyone. They were gone. I don't know if any of them survived the attack, everything, temples, houses, medical centres were destroyed. I... I never went back to my base. Instead I spent months trying to survive and find some contact to the Alliance. I finally did, luckily, and... well, you know the rest."

"But some of these heaps of bantha droppings," (she tries to tone down her cursing when she is Cassian, apparently he doesn't have as much of a mouth on him as she does), "still give you shit about it."

"Yeah. I thought you... you knew this, though, thought you'd read my file, you know?" Bodhi finally looks at her again and _yes,_ Jyn thinks, _Cassian probably knows this,_ that his friend is an ex-Imperial cargo pilot, but Jyn doesn't and she's thankful that Bodhi told her.

And has Cassian ever talked to Bodhi about this? Or has he just read the clinical facts, probably jotted down by some stuck-up, emotionless officer like Draven? 

Jyn would like to ask him.

* * *

Cassian finds it's no walk in the park, trying to be Jyn. She is Saw's toughest fighter, the cell's best slicer and he has no easy time trying to live up to her reputation. Not that he's not good at these things, it's just that she's... better. Just the little bit that makes his - _her_ \- comrades throw him suspicious looks when he goes down during a training fight or twirls Jyn's hair impatiently while trying to crack her own code. 

The rebels in her cell are louder than the Alliance will ever be, and that's not to say that they're not professional when on an operation, but they tend to attract more attention, make more noise. 

They're also louder in the private moments, when sitting together for a meal or playing cards. Apparently Jyn has got quite a mouth on her, the first time he swears while he's her his guard duty companions blink at him irritatedly, because "damn" seems to be one of Jyn's milder curse words of choice.

One time he forgets himself for a second and swears in his native tongue, cursing the firing trooper into next week for nicking his - _Jyn's_ \- shoulder. Luckily they're in the middle of a street fight and no one has time to comment on that one, until Maia corners him afterwards, cleans up Jyn's shoulder ( _I'm sorry, I shot the trooper, though,_ he later writes down for Jyn (and hates himself for bloodying _her_ hands with his actions)) and asks him if it was Alderaanian he spoke back there.

"Something like that, yeah," he says, hoping she'll leave it at that. She doesn't.

"Where'd you pick that up?" She frowns while wrapping the bandage under Jyn's arm and knotting it.

"Katooni," he ventures, because he seems to remember the Tholothian mentioning that she'd been raised somewhere on a core world and that would be close enough.

Thankfully, Maia lets it go at that point, seemingly placated by this, and Cassian relaxes. If this is the worst that he can fuck up for her anymore, he's grateful. He just hopes Jyn never has to take one of his... less pleasant missions while she's him.

* * *

One time, Jyn wakes up on a spaceship on Cassian's way back from an op. She can't quite place the cause, but there's an unpleasant feeling in her stomach. She is jittery, jumps a meter into the air when Bodhi knocks on her door and she has the distinct feeling that Cassian had a nightmare just before she woke up in his body.

She slices into Cassian's pad (they keep challenging each other with their security measures), but finds nothing. There's no report for her to give to Draven, who will certainly be waiting for her on base, tapping his giant foot impatiently, and more disappointingly, no private note for her.

She doesn't dare ask Bodhi or Kay about the mission and as a result she's a bit of a nervous wreck when they touch down on the base.

Draven catches her as she exits the hangar and there goes her plan to just ignore him for the rest of the day and leave it to Cassian to deal with him. ( _Unfair, I'm sorry, I didn't know what to do._ )

"Lieutenant Andor," Draven addresses her and there's really no way now to pretend she didn't hear him.

She turns. "General."

"Report for debrief in an hour," the man says and there's nothing to it now.

"Can this wait until tomorrow morning, sir?" she asks, because she really doesn't see any other way out of this than being (to a certain extent) honest. "I don't feel well right now."

She's already gearing up for an argument, faking a stomach bug or food poisoning, but to her surprise, Draven nods curtly. "Understandable. Tomorrow, 0700." And he walks away.

Just what kind of assignment has she just returned from?

She takes a deep breath and goes to find Kay.

* * *

He's - Jyn's - on guard duty, sitting high up on the ruin with her blaster, a scope and a prattling male Pantoran. The sky is a deep dark blue - almost black - dotted with countless tiny shining pinpricks, the desert air cold. The guy beside him just won't shut up. Cassian has been there for the last three hours and has already heard at least five different tales of his guard partner shooting a high ranking Imperial, saving either a school full of children, a hospital, or a temple full of cowering citizens, who wanted to shower him with gifts for his heroic deeds.

And that was before Cassian stopped listening.

Suddenly there's a blue arm around his - Jyn's - shoulders and the dude is leaning in close. 

"You know, this is a lovely night," he says and Cassian freezes. Jyn has never mentioned being with someone and even if this was the case, Cassian doesn't feel comfortable about the way this situation is unfolding.

When the guy doesn't let up after Cassian politely asks him to fuck the hells off, Cassian punches him in the face.

* * *

When Jyn reads his sheepish recount the next day, she laughs for an hour.

* * *

When Cassian reads her unusually reserved report that same day, he almost throws up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very brief wikipedia search gives me the impression that the term "elective amnesia" doesn't actually exist.
> 
> I got this term from a Rise Against song and have not stopped snickering about using it, and furthermore using lyrics from the song as the chapter titles and a warped form of one line as the actual fic title. Hopefully, you can forgive me this medical inaccuracy.


	4. It Could Be Minutes Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shamelessly borrowing some stylistic type formatting from skitzofreak at the end of this chapter. (if you ever come across this, pls don't sue me, it just fit too well here)

Cassian doesn't have to open his eyes to know he'll find the underside of a hammock greeting him. The moment he drifts from sleep into wakefulness he just _knows._ It's probably the smell. Not that of Jyn's roommates or that of the base in general, it just... smells like Jyn. Or what she must smell like, according to her hammock and blanket. 

The sense of sleeping in someone else's bed is fleeting, though, and soon enough it all smells normal to him. The first thing he does is check Jyn's datapad, learning what he can about the day(s?) in between his last visit here and right now. She informs him in detail of an attack the Partisans lead on the local Imperial mess building, not only destroying the Imperials' place to be fed, but also scrounging most of the food stored there in the process. 

_"So you should be able to enjoy an actual breakfast today, fresh fruit and all"_ Jyn concludes and Cassian smiles. He would feel bad about it if he didn't know an at least equally healthy breakfast was waiting for her at the Alliance base. It's something he has learned to cherish - not that he hasn't always been thankful for it, he does remember worse times after all - but witnessing first hand how Jyn doesn't always have the luxury of getting a breakfast at all intensified his gratefulness towards ending up in the Alliance and not a random rebel cell on a remote planet. The first time he and Maia had to travel to the city to steal from tourists to feed themselves his heart had ached for Jyn.

"Psst, Jyn?"

There's a whisper from the direction of the door and Cassian turns his head to find the (by now) familiar dark face and hair sticking through a crack in the door.

"You ready to go?"

"Yes, just a moment," he answers and closes the datapad, swings his legs from the hammock and into Jyn's boots. Jyn always sleeps in her clothes, he knows by now, not because she wouldn't be able to acquire a spare of clothes or some nightclothes, but because she is drilled to always be ready to defend herself. 

He follows Maia down the corridor and into the Partisans' pantry. They fill two rucksacks and four bags with a bit of everything they stole the day before. At the back entrance of the catacombs they find Katooni and Zatt standing guard, the latter throwing him and Maia a sloppy salute as they pass into the desert. The trek is exhausting, laden as they are with bags full of food, but the sun is only just starting to creep over the horizon, so at least it is not yet hot.

They sneak into the awakening city on a to Cassian by now well known path, up the side of the towering rocky foundation which carries the city. They enter through a secret tunnel and emerge near their destination.

The Temple of Kyber is silent, but Cassian can make out the shadows of people moving inside. He and Maia slip through the rubble that partially blocks the once grand entrance of the ancient temple. Inside, a few lanterns are lit and the shadows Cassian saw from outside evolve into sentients of all races and colours. There are a few adults, but mostly children, huddling between the Guardians of the Whills.

The young kids come running when they notice Maia and him and crowd around them, babbling over each other excitedly. They set their bags and rucksacks down and with help from the Guardians they give out the food they brought. The sentients are thankful and patient, it seems to Cassian this is some kind of routine and the people know that none of them will go home empty handed.

When the last of the food is given out and the crowd has dispersed, slowly, hesitantly, sentient after sentient slipping out of the temple and sneaking off, only a few of the children remain, some munching on the food they acquired, some picking up sticks and starting what Cassian assumes is some sort of training for them. He has been here a few times with Maia, the two of them informing Baze, with his rough attitude and impressive weapon, and Chirrut, with his milky eyes and strange comments, of a planned attack or another, so they might either stay out of the way (and having the children stay out of the way) or provide backup as they see fit.

Today, however, Maia seems in no rush to get back to their base and Cassian follows her example, weaving between the children and helping the Guardians correct battle stances, grips on sticks and even sitting down and explaining the mechanism of Jyn's blaster to a few of the older children.

Then Chirrut steps into the middle of the room and bangs his staff onto the stone floor and Cassian watches in awe as the children immediately cease their training and chatter and gather around the blind man in a half circle. He is privately relieved when he sees Maia joining the group and steps to her side.

Chirrut leads them out of the temple and through narrow streets. They sneak around corners, Cassian notices the market stalls being opened one by one, the sun is now up and already pleasantly warm. And then a building appears towering before them, its - what looks like - formerly domed roof half collapsed and the remnants glinting softly in the morning light. It's huge, wide, round and like almost everything in this city dusty and half in ruins. Nevertheless it is a breathtaking view.

"You look like you've never seen the Dome of Deliverance before," remarks Maia from his side and he blinks. He must have been staring.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to it," he tries to deflect any possible suspicions. 

"Hm. Valid," Maia shrugs and follows Chirrut, Baze and the children through a narrow hole in the wall, Cassian hurrying to catch up.

His eyes take a moment to adjust once inside, but it's worth it. He can make out thick, tall pillars all around the vast room, disappearing hesitantly in the shadows on the far side, some collapsed, some half standing. They cross the room and Cassian tries not to be too obvious while taking it all in, the reliefs on the walls he can only just make out but not actually see what they depict, the floor, covered in sand and dust and debris, which hide a once bright mosaic in yellows, blues, greens and everything in between.

Chirrut leads them unerringly towards the other end of the building, as if he's walked this path a million times in his life (maybe he has), and through a heavy stone door that he pushes open with help of Baze's bulky shadow.

They descend into a tunnel, and the sparse daylight filtering into the ruin that has been until now guiding their way into the shadows is swallowed by the darkness. Then a new light flares to life and Cassian sees Baze stepping forwards with a lantern in his hand. The tunnel is narrow, steadily descending, the floor uneven and their progress slow. Cassian tries to count the minutes but gets distracted by more reliefs carved into the stone walls of the tunnel. Again, he can't make out much, Baze's lantern's light only reaching so far.

After what feels like a small eternity they emerge into a hall, the floor is again made out of colourful stone and this time the walls are, too. Chirrut settles onto the floor in the middle of the room and sits down cross legged, the children forming a semi-circle around him and Cassian watches Maia settle down near the back of the cluster of kids and sinks down onto the stone floor beside her.

Chirrut waits patiently until the rustle of bodies and fabric fades and smiles serenely.

"This, my little brothers and sisters, is a very holy place. There are very few in the galaxy nowadays that are willing to listen to the Force. Here," he waves his arms around the room, "the Guardians of ancient times would gather in silence and feel the Force. Now, the Force, as you know, is as ancient as the galaxy itself, maybe even more. It lives in every living being and flows through each of us. There have been those who can feel the Force, those who can even communicate with it, but fear not, little brothers and sisters, even if you cannot hear or feel it, the Force is still there."

Cassian listens, enraptured, to the monk's serene voice, absently touching a hand to the crystal at Jyn's collarbone. He is not a believer, not one of those who think the Force is some higher being, something that controls the galaxy or guides one's actions. No, Cassian is pragmatic in his beliefs, people make choices, they take action one way or another or not at all, it's them who control the way of the galaxy. It's why he joined the Alliance after all, why he chose to take action and make a difference, fighting for a galaxy he would one day like to live in. It is a choice _he_ made, not the Force.

But sitting here, listening to Chirrut talking, he can almost see the ancient Guardians sitting where Chirrut is sitting now, breathing in the room and feeling - _something._ He can't explain it, really, it doesn't feel like he is being guided by something or hearing whispers, but this place makes him feel... connected. To the universe, to Chirrut, droning on about Force lore, to the children around him, to Maia, beside him, even to Bodhi and Kes and Draven, but first and foremost, to Jyn. He can feel her in his bones, his very soul and the hair on the back of his neck is rising even before he notices that he's closed his eyes and somehow _knows_ that someone is staring at him.

He opens his eyes and sees Baze, sitting with his back to the wall near Cassian, his face relaxed but his eyes sharp.

"Jyn... you're dreaming, aren't you?"

* * *

Cassian wakes up, gasping.

His heart is pounding an erratic rhythm inside his chest and in his ears. He clenches his eyes shut, trying to calm his body and ever so slowly his pulse drops and he can make out the pounding of a metal fist on his quarters' door.

He breathes deeply once, in and out, and then rolls up from his bunk and opens the door to the sight of Kay. 

"Cassian, the Specter mission has been moved forward, there has been a change in schedule of the Imperial troops and our assignment has to be adjusted accordingly."

Cassian is already in motion and halfway dressed by the time Kay finishes the sentence, his brain jump started at the mention of the mission. It's an opportunity sort of operation, the Alliance has laid out the plans to this one weeks ago, around the time, yes, around the time he and Jyn started... what, exactly? Sharing their lives? That sounds both right and entirely wrong and still.

Jyn has actually been the one to come up with the details, her messages for him fairly beaming with pride about her plans and even though she still sometimes calls Draven an insufferable stuck-up nerf-herder, Cassian has gotten the impression that she had been fairly bursting with pride about the General's praise. She'll be disappointed that she isn't here to execute the mission. Hells, _he_ is disappointed that she isn't here with him to - wait, where does that come from?

No time to yearn for another reality, though, he is out the door and down the corridor on Kay's heels in the next moment and they burst into Intelligence only long enough to report for duty, collect Bodhi and the ground troops and Cassian only has a brief moment to think of Jyn when they're on their way, his comrades briefed, all equipment checked and they're about to jump back to realspace.

The mission goes without a hitch, as he knew it would, he is no less proud of Jyn than Draven must have been of 'him' while laying down the plan. The prisoners - an entire village of Wookiees that had resisted the occupation of their home by the Empire - are currently safe on board the shuttle Shara Bey and Kes Dameron are piloting, Cassian notes all of his officers alive and reporting a few scratches and bruises at most, and it's exhilarating.

Cassian has seen a lot of shit in his life, from when he was a child, fighting against an enemy he didn't even fully understand at the time, and then for the Alliance, for a cause he believes in, wants to protect at all costs and has already in his young life committed so many atrocities for that he is infinitely thankful when, once in a while, he gets the chance to actually see the people he saves by shooting an Imperial General clean between the eyes.

Sometimes... everybody lives.

* * *

They're in the middle of a vicious street fight when Jyn feels the unmistakable and unaccountable rush of giddy happiness. Adrenaline is rushing through her veins and her thigh stings from a blaster burn, the Partisans are cornered, the Empire sending tanks into the battle and a few intersections away she can see the outline of an AT-ST stalking through the streets and shooting bolts of deadly light into the masses of screaming people. 

The small group of Partisans she had led into the city that morning to scout for possible targets is huddled in a dead end between crates and rubble and downed Stormtroopers. By all means, she shouldn't be feeling giddy happiness right now. Chaos may well be her element and she thrives in it, but this sudden rush of feelings doesn't feel entirely right, doesn't feel entirely _hers_ and- her hand is halfway up to her collar when there's a resounding explosion from the other end of the street and Jyn sees a small figure hurrying back into the shadows of an alley as the tank explodes.

Debris is raining down on them and through the dust dancing in the soft light of the setting sun, Jyn sees the staggering steps of the AT-ST.

Then the thing crashes into the street and is still.

Jyn hesitates, waiting for the blow to come, but then she hears Saw's voice. He's bellowing orders, people are running around in the chaos of the settling fight and then Jyn looks up. The Star Destroyer that has been hovering over the city while the Empire was milking it for the kyber crystals is pulling away. People are whooping, embracing in the street, faces emerge from windows, people who have hidden themselves away in their homes and now hear others shouting and jubilating outside. They see the Destroyer vanishing and fear mixed with curiosity is replaced by wonder and happiness on their faces.

Jyn and her people gather their injured and leave the fallen, scrounge the Imperial bodies of everything useful. There's a twinge in her heart, a tug when she sees her fallen comrades and civilians, too, but she gets up and runs, through the streets and around sentients of every shape and colour until she reaches the Temple of Kyber. The Guardians are standing before the building, Baze with his mighty cannon, Chirrut with his staff and multiple others Jyn doesn't know so well with their lightbows. 

She skids to a stop before her friends, breathless and so relieved.

_They're alive, they're alive._

But they don't acknowledge her, they're staring at the sky and she looks up, too, and there's a bright, round, white shadow in the sky, a bit like a small planet and it's getting brighter by the second.

"What is that...?" she whispers, an unexplainable tightness gripping her insides. A shiver runs down her back, she feels cold all of a sudden.

"It has been there for an hour now, maybe it's a meteorite?" someone suggests. Jyn now sees civilians staring up at the thing, too, from the streets, from doorways and windows.

The last thing she sees is a bright green light coming from the object.

* * *

_"Hey, Jyn. Your mission was a success. I couldn't have planned it better myself. I'm sorry you weren't here, I really wish you had been here, that we could have done this together. The Wookiees are all safe, we didn't lose any men. Draven was impressed and you know he isn't impressed very easily. I am going to meet Bodhi later to toast our mission. There's nothing yet scheduled for the immediate future, so I guess we're on-call for whatever comes up next. ~~Hey, you know what would be funny- Could you maybe imagine Have you ever wondered~~_

_I would really like to meet you. In person."_

* * *

_"Jyn, if you're reading this I've been assigned for a recruiting mission tomorrow. It's going to be only me and Kay as backup, Bodhi and Kes are off with Red Squadron. We're going to Corellia, a contact is helping me get someone off planet and into the Alliance. Mission details are attached to this file. If you're going to be me, please be careful._

_I would still really like to meet you, Jyn. If that is not something you want, ~~it's alright,~~ I understand."_

* * *

_" ~~Mission on Corellia didn't go so well, I'm glad you weren't me to be hone~~ Corellia was a miss, we got into a squabble with the local crime scene. Recruit killed, I got away but barely. Sorry about the broken arm, should it hurt too much you're allowed to request more painkillers from the medbay."_

* * *

_"Jyn, I'm being sent on a long undercover mission. Could easily be a month. Mission details attached, Kay has all of them, too. ~~I~~ I ~~t's been a while, Jyn, and~~ "_

* * *

_"I miss you."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that hurt. Have a nice week.
> 
> PS: this is a no one dies/everybody lives kind of story, so don't worry too much!


	5. Disconnect/It Could Be Hours Or Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> /\\_/\  
> (=' ᴗ' )  
> (, (") (")
> 
> (Me, knowing full well what I did here.)

When Cassian makes his way to the mess for breakfast, he is greeted with a worried look on Bodhi's face and Kes Dameron telling him:

"You look like shit."

Which he knows. He looked into the mirror after getting up and immediately regretted it. Shara makes a weird movement, shaking the table slightly and Kes flinches.

"Ow, Shara!"

If Cassian wasn't so tired he'd have to be trying to hide a smirk from forming on his face. As it is, he dimly registers Shara giving Kes a very obvious _'can't you be tactful once?'_ look and sinks down into the seat next to Bodhi.

"So, how did your mission go?" Bodhi asks after a few minutes of eating in silence. (He doesn't miss the covert looks the others try to give him and he wonders what they're looking for. Are they waiting for him to break down? To snap? Doesn't matter, he won't do either, he's been in this fight for too long.) 

"Bodhi, you know I can't talk-" he starts but his friend waves his spoon at him, silencing him.

"I know, you can't tell me the details. But... but you can tell me if it went okay, or if, if it didn't," the young man reasons and really, Cassian doesn't have any good arguments against _that_ and apart from that, he feels too tired to make much of a fuss about it.

"Fine. It went fine," he answers and hopes this is the end of it, but also hopes his friend _won't_ let it go and isn't that some conflicting feeling?

Bodhi, amazingly, finds a compromise. "I know you can't, can't talk about your missions, Cassian, and - and... and I respect that. But if you ever, you know, ever need to talk... about something you _can_ talk about, I'm here," he pauses for a second and then, "you know that, right? We're all here?"

And Cassian, who has learned to shut his emotions away from a very young age, who has been trained to never move a muscle if it would compromise him and who had taken to just not move a muscle at all most of his life as a consequence, because it is easier to be like this all the time than switch back and forth between being a warm, compassionate _person_ and the cold, calculating rebel spy he was trained to be. Cassian Andor, who has been dubbed 'ice man' by his fellow spies of all people and has never thought once of proving them wrong, has embraced this nickname (if they don't think he knows, they're not as smart as he thinks they are), has wrapped it around himself like a bulletproof vest, braces his elbows on the table in the corner of the mess hall and puts his face in his hands.

It's as much of an admission of weariness and defeat as it would have been if he had flipped the table, or started to just cry (he hasn't cried in a long time, not really, but he feels like doing so now). He feels more than hears the other three at his table stop eating and almost shuts it all down _again,_ facing them and telling them not to worry, maybe snap at them to leave him alone, but it has been a month, it has been four weeks, that's 30 standard days, and he's tired and emotional and, yeah, a bit desperate.

"Look, we got a debrief at 0900, how about, after, we can... meet?" Bodhi finishes sort of lamely, but Cassian is incredibly thankful that he was the one who extracted Bodhi not that long ago, and that the pilot seems to take this as a friendship offering and hasn't yet turned away from Cassian, even though he knows he doesn't make it particularly easy. 

Cassian feels a lump forming in his throat and just nods, afraid to speak, afraid to sound like he's feeling, like he might be about to cry over a few people being kind to him. (Not that the Alliance hasn't been kind to him, but it has also been _not_ kind to him in some rather profound ways.)

They promise to meet after the debrief and Cassian returns to his quarters, checks his datapad, stares at the bunch of messages meant for Jyn (he hasn't had the heart to delete them, he still _hopes,_ oh how he still hopes, and it hurts so, so much), rearranges his clothes, takes a shower, considers to shave off the stubble he acquired during the days long flight back from Mandalore and then doesn't bother. It will make him look like his undercover persona again and this is just all sorts of wrong (he'll never voluntarily shave clean again, only for missions, sometimes not even then, not if he can get around it somehow).

He's folding his clothes for the third time in an hour, secretly almost hoping to get a comm call from Draven for another mission, when there's a knock on his door. It's Bodhi, smiling softly and nodding his head towards the hallway.

Cassian follows the slightly younger man down corridors and through two hangars, finally leaving the vast buildings of Alliance headquarters. He doesn't ask where they're going, for once willing (happy) to be led. At the base of the huge pyramidal building bordering on the wild jungle, three more figures come into view. 

Shara, hands tucked into her pockets, Kes, grinning and waving a bottle without label, and Kay, towering behind them. For some reason, the sight fills Cassian with warmth. 

"Is this okay?" Bodhi asks, always so considerate of others' feelings, "They won't be mad if you send them away."

But Cassian nods, again not trusting himself to speak. What is it with him today that makes him so kriffing emotional? They climb the side of the ancient ziggurat and make themselves comfortable about halfway up, where they can just look over the crowns of the trees. They're silent for a while, even Kay stops prattling about statistical nonsense for once, passing the bottle of whatever vile, alcoholic thing Kes managed to acquire between themselves, Cassian - unusually - fidgeting.

"We don't have to talk, you know," Bodhi says sympathetically. "We can just, just sit here and get wasted. It's fine."

And, somehow it's this that calms Cassian down, makes him take a deep breath and open his mouth. He tells them everything.

* * *

Cassian doesn't think people can surprise him anymore. He's been doing this job for so long and is so damn good at it, reading people is instinctive and sometimes all he needs is a glance to figure someone out, their motivations, where they come from, where they're going.

And yet, here he is, in his quarters, cramped in with three pilots and an Imperial security droid, studying a holographic star map of the known galaxy. Cassian had expected them to gently coax him down the pyramid after his story of the girl who's been him and whom he has been and who has now vanished from his life, leaving a deep empty hole where he hadn't known she'd made herself at home. Coax him down, take his hand gently - because sometimes even his imagination runs a bit wild - and drag him to medbay to examine him for head injuries.

Instead, they have coaxed him down from the pyramid, dragged him to his quarters (because he is the only one with private ones) and procured a star map, proceeding to ask him questions about the planet Jyn lives on.

Sadly, as he mostly forgets everything the moment he wakes up, the only things he really remembers is the desert, the sand and a vague feeling of being home (which isn't any help at all, and he keeps the last sentiment to himself). 

His friends make up a list of desert planets, but none of the names rings a bell. He's in a bit of a daze, to be honest, trying (and failing) to remember something that might tip him off about the planet he's looking for at least, the people around him prodding him for information (and maybe that's the problem, he thinks, he's programmed to withhold any information, trained not to fold under the most dire circumstances and maybe that's not helping at all). 

He is getting incredibly frustrated the longer they look without finding the smallest lead, but he isn't about to give up, his friends' enthusiasm and support for this has fueled the hope to somehow be able to find her again. At one point Bodhi pulls Kay aside and while Kes and Shara argue about the best flight routes, Cassian browses their list of planets again, trying to remember something, anything that would rule any of them out.

"Okay, come on," Bodhi suddenly announces after hours, grabbing the holo projector, shutting down the star map and Shara and Kes' chatter. Cassian feels his shoulders drop in disappointment.

His friends squeeze through his door and Bodhi turns around, looking at Cassian, sitting on his bunk with a defeated look in his eyes.

"Well, come on, we're going," the pilot waves at him impatiently to follow and Cassian blinks.

* * *

Draven is not exactly happy that his best spy ships out along with three of the Alliance's best pilots, Cassian can tell. His superior's mouth is a bit too thin and his eyebrows a bit too flat.

But Cassian tells him he needs to follow up on an important lead and he thinks it might be the fact that he never asks for favours which tips the odds to his advance.

* * *

The first planet they try is Sergia, which is mostly due to the fact that the Alliance operates a refueling station there. They stack up on food and ask around for any sort of information about a rebel cell operating on the planet.

"No rebel activity here, we deal in information and fuel," the station master, a middle aged Twi'lek, informs them.

They go out into the city from the small port anyway, Cassian looking for anything familiar. It's similar enough to Jyn's planet, the sand, the streets, the stone buildings, but it's too clean, the buildings touched by weather, by wind and sand, yes, but they're all whole. Bodhi buys them all snacks and they walk around a bit more, but the feeling in Cassian's gut only solidifies into grim certainty; it's not Jyn's planet.

He hasn't expected the first planet to be a hit, though, and doesn't let it get him down. And, as Kay points out (unusually optimistic), it just means they are one planet nearer to the one they're looking for.

* * *

Next on their list is Tatooine and Cassian knows this is not it even before they step foot onto the planet in Mos Eisley. It's too sandy, not rocky enough, the buildings too round and even though he tells his friends as much, Kes insists on visiting the famous cantina of Mos Eisley, claiming it to be a hot spot for bounty hunters (which it is) and therefore worth seeing.

"Would you like to know the odds of them getting into trouble with the occupants of that establishment?" Kay asks Cassian as they watch Kes and Shara rush forward towards the entrance of the cantina, Bodhi trailing behind them, a little more reserved.

"No, thank you," Cassian sighs and follows his friends, because if he doesn't the odds will only increase.

"I understand," Kay relents and follows him into the building.

The cantina is dimly lit, with lots of shadowy corners and Cassian immediately feels both on edge and reassured by this. Kes and Shara are already at the bar, ordering drinks, and Bodhi has thankfully chosen a table in a corner.

Sentients of every species possible are milling about the place, a group of Bith playing an erratic tune on various instruments on the other side of the bar and Cassian counts at least five beings at a glance that he's never seen in real life before.

"We don't serve his kind here," a rough voice interrupts his thoughts and Cassian's gaze zeroes in on the Nimbanel behind the bar, who has just finished serving drinks to Kes and Shara. The man jerks his chin at Kay.

Cassian stares at him and then looks at Kay apologetically. He should have thought better of bringing an Imperial security droid here, he should be glad no one simply shot at Kay before throwing him out of the bar. Then again, he doesn't see any droids in this establishment and still standing in the entrance, the light from outside probably silhouetting them to the interior of the bar, maybe no one has yet noticed the Imperial insignia on Kay's shoulders.

Deciding to play it safe, Cassian leans closer to Kay and whispers, "Maybe you should go back to the ship and wait there."

Kay makes a noise that Cassian has come to interpret as a huff over the years. "Would you like to know how the odds of me leaving increase the probability of you and your friends getting into trouble?"

Cassian grimaces, but before he can decide how to answer that one, Kay saves him the trouble by stating, "They're high. They're very high," and stalking out of the bar.

They ultimately don't get into trouble, but barely, and lose a fair amount of their credits in the process, so Cassian silently promises himself never to set foot on Tatooine again if he can help it.

They enter hyperspace in the direction of their next target, Bodhi and Kay piloting their U-Wing, Shara and Kes laughing from adrenaline and Cassian staring at the holo star map, willing it to point him the way to Jyn.

* * *

On Elom they run into a street fight between Imperial forces and locals and have to shoot their way out to escape certain death, or worse: captivity.

(They will later learn from the holonet that the native Elomin sabotaged an Imperial mining site, causing squirmishes to break out all over the city they landed in.)

* * *

They barely graze Jakku, being almost even more of a wasteland than Tatooine, Cassian swearing this isn't it and the others not very regretful about not keeping around for long.

* * *

Stoga does seem promising at a first glance, but the local rebel cells have been infiltrated and wiped out by the Empire rather recently and they don't stay any longer than it takes to chat with the guy refueling their ship and finding out about the rebels.

Troopers are stationed at every exit of the port and none of them wants to risk getting in trouble with the Empire when the rebel activity is all but dead here.

And anyway, it doesn't _feel_ right.

* * *

Cassian is sitting in the very tiny sitting area of the ship, once more staring holes into the holographic star map. Currently they're floating around the Outer Rim, undecided where to go next. Cassian has calculated the necessary hyperspace routes to the next three targets on the list, but is hesitant to make the call for where to head.

Shara and Kes are piloting (or flirting, or both, who even knows at this point) and Kay is powered down, recharging. Bodhi sinks into the seat next to Cassian. 

"Want to go over the next options again?" Bodhi asks after a few minutes of silence.

Cassian hesitates. He is torn between his selfish need to find Jyn and his duty to return to the Alliance and do his kriffing job. Also, entangling three of the rebellion's best fighter pilots is not really helping his conscience. He sighs.

"I don't know, maybe I'm not meant to find her," he says and cringes inwardly at the defeat in his voice.

"Hm," Bodhi responds, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. "You know what? Let's do one more planet. You can... I don't know, choose, or close your eyes and point at one at random, or if you want, I can choose for you. We can flip a coin."

Cassian laughs quietly, despite himself. "Next you'll tell me to let the Force guide me."

"There are those who believe it's possible, you know," Bodhi tells him and Cassian wonders if he's accidentally hit a nerve there.

"Do _you_ believe that?" he asks, his tone curious, because he is, he doesn't even have to consciously try to keep any judgement out of his voice, because there's none there.

"I believe that there are those who can feel the Force, those who can even communicate with it, but even if you cannot hear or feel it, the Force is still there," Bodhi says and Cassian's eyes widen, because-

"I have heard that before," he whispers, staring at Bodhi, his heart beating fast all of a sudden. "Bodhi, I've heard that before, while I was Jyn."

Bodhi blinks at him and then pales. "I heard this when I was a child, back home, but-"

But Cassian is suddenly too excited to let his friend finish talking, he's up off his seat and pacing, running his hands through his hair, trying to hold onto the image of a small room with mosaic on the floor and the walls and a monk-

But he can't grasp it, it's gone as soon as it's there and he's back in the catacombs with Maia and Katooni and-

"Saw," he gasps, because no one would know random first names of low level rebel soldiers but maybe the name of the leader of a rebel cell - what did they call themselves? Something with P... Por, no - maybe, though, the name of the leader of a rebel cell will be enough.

"Her...," he's at a loss for a moment, her what? Guardian? Adoptive father? "... her mentor," he settles for, "his name is Saw..."

And he can't grasp anything else and is on the verge to hit something when Bodhi's mouth drops open and he croaks,

"Saw... Gerrera?"

* * *

"Yes!" Cassian shouts, a grin breaking out on his face, the first one for weeks and he feels lighter than he has in ages. "Saw Gerrera, leader of the Partisans! Do you know of him?"

Bodhi's face falls slightly and he drops his eyes from Cassian's, casting around for somewhere to focus on, but this ship is small and there's only so much interesting gear here. 

"I... I know of him...," Bodhi starts, stops, and Cassian barely keeps himself from prompting his friend. "Jedha. They were operating on Jedha. It fits your descriptions of the planet, too."

And Cassian is about to hug Bodhi - something so out of his character that it should make him pause, but he doesn't care, it's Jedha and they're going to find Jyn - but his friend holds up a hand, a very, very sad look on his face and Cassian freezes, his stomach clenching.

"Cass... Jedha, it's..."

* * *

They're standing on the ridge of a huge crater in the middle of nowhere and Cassian feels numb.

"This can't be..." he whispers, while at the same time, deep down in his soul, he knows it's the right place. 

"According to the holonet it was a mining accident," Shara informs him in a somber tone. "It wiped out the whole city."

The thoughts reel in his head. It can't be, Jyn, she _can't be-_

"About a year ago," is the next thing that registers in his head.

"What...?"

"I said about a year ago, well minus a few weeks," Shara repeats, frowning at her datapad.

The impact of those words seem to register with the others at the same time they register for him, it seems.

"Wait," Kes says, "but that means, if you two... body-switched or whatever, she is, I mean she has been dead for a year?"

Hearing his friend actually say it makes Cassian's legs give in and he drops to the sand on his hands and knees.

"How is that possible?" Bodhi wonders.

Cassian scrambles for his datapad, fingers numb and fumbling and pulls up Jyn's messages, every report and message she ever wrote for him, everything he wrote to her. As soon as he opens the files, the letters disappear before his eyes, as if they're encrypting themselves again and then delete, leaving the documents completely bare. This can't be, he was her, just a few weeks ago, he can still remember the smell of her hammock, feel the callouses on her fingertips, her hair, as he pulled it into her favoured bun. ( _"Please don't braid my hair again, everyone has been giving me_ looks. _"_ )

"I have calculated the odds of her surviving this mining accident, would you like to hear them?" Kay provides.

Three voices simultaneously hiss "Kay!"

* * *

They stay in their ship on the planet while Cassian reads everything he can find on Jedha, on the Partisans, on the accident that wiped out the city as well as the catacombs that served as the rebel cell's base. No survivors have been reported.

Bodhi tells them the story of the Empire coming to Jedha, when he was just finishing up his training in the Imperial Flight Academy and returning to find a Star Destroyer hovering over the city and his home destroyed while the Partisans and the Imps waged their war in the streets.

Maybe it has all been a dream after all, maybe he heard about Jedha from Bodhi's file or later about the accident somewhere and his subconscious conjured this elaborate scenario-

But it felt so _real._ And all those times he woke up and couldn't remember what he'd been doing the day before. It doesn't explain his own missing memories of things he's apparently done, but hasn't himself.

He blinks away the moisture in his eyes, tries to stomp on the helplessness he's feeling, takes a deep breath and unclenches his fingers from around the stone that hangs from the necklace at his collarbone. Where did he get that, anyway?

And then a thought occurs to him, the flash of the small room with the mosaic and he feels-

He tells his friends he wants to take a last look at the wiped out city, ignores Bodhi's sad look, Kes and Shara's pitying ones and leaves the ship.

* * *

He doesn't have much hope of finding it, but something pulls him through all the rubble and dust and sand to a place where there's a dip in the sands. He digs a bit of the sand out of the way, expecting to find a caved in tunnel and almost doesn't believe his eyes when he finds the tunnel intact. 

He follows it for what feels like eternity, his only light from his small electrical torch guiding him further down.

The room is as he suddenly clearly remembers it. Dustier, yes, and full of sand, but intact. He takes a moment to marvel that something like this survived when the whole of the city above it, all its occupants - when everything else is destroyed.

He's at a loss now, though. Whatever guided him here doesn't seem to provide anything else. He moves to the center of the room and sinks down on the floor where Chirrut used to sit - he remembers it so clearly now. Cassian closes his eyes, wishing with all his might to see Jyn one last time, his hand reaching up and closing around the stone around his neck.

He feels the hair at the back of his neck rise and opens his eyes. The little room is glowing, bathed in the light of a million crystals all around him, the mosaic stones glowing in every colour he can imagine.

He gets up, intending to have a closer look, his heart beating fast in his chest, his foot catching on an uneven piece of the mosaic on the floor. And he falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative part:
> 
> Cassian: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻  
> Kes, Bodhi, Shara: (●__●)
> 
> Kay: ( •_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)


	6. Before The Bottom Falls out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, the anime has a glorious soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9yfuYDoGf4&t=268s

He sees the glowing lights of the kyber crystals and then - then he sees a little girl with light brown hair, standing at a large window that reaches from the floor to the roof of the room she's in. She's pressing her face and small hands to the glass, apparently transfixed by whatever she sees outside. 

There's a sound of small bells ringing out a melody and the girl whirls, fear written over her features and a woman with dark hair and light grey robes emerges from another room, throwing the girl a strict look and the kid scrambles into another room and slips under the covers of a bed. A moment later, two men enter the apartment, both dressed in Imperial uniforms, one a dark grey, one an almost blinding white. The girl pulls the blanket up to her face just enough that she's still able to glimpse the two men. Then she ducks beneath the fabric and out of sight.

* * *

The little girl is now slightly older, but not much, and hanging onto her mother's hand. Cassian thinks he recognises the general outline of a spaceport, and there's the man in the grey uniform again, just behind the woman and the child, throwing fleeting glances all around. The woman looks back at the man and somehow Cassian knows it's her husband and her eyes go over his shoulder and she sweeps the girl into her arms, the man looking behind him, there are Stormtroopers looking at a holoimage and glancing in their general direction and then the little family is running.

* * *

There's the girl again, again a bit older, lying in the grass on her stomach and Cassian can make out the ocean in the distance. The girl is watching her father facing the man in the white uniform, several figures in black armor at his side - the white man's side - and there's a woman suddenly - the girl's mother? - and she's pointing a blaster at the white man and then there are two shots and the woman falls...

* * *

She's in a bunker, her lantern about to go out and Cassian can feel her fear and anger and despair...

There's a sound above her and a creak and a dark-skinned man peers down at her through a hole in the ground and he knows this man and then Cassian understands... it's Jyn. Of course it's Jyn. He's seeing... flashes of her life?

There are flashes now, moments, impressions. The first time she held her beloved truncheon (Cassian smiles softly), the first time she met Maia, the first time Saw told her "well done", her first street fight in the City of Jedha, her first blaster burn, and now she's sitting on the roof of the catacombs and a blue arm sneaks around her shoulders and her fist is in a blue face - wait, but wasn't that him?

And then she's on Yavin and it _can't_ be-

But there, she's standing with Chirrut and Baze in front of the Temple of Kyber and they're all looking up.

There's an object in the sky and at first he thinks it's a planet or a moon, but that's not it and it gets brighter by the second, like it's still materialising from hyperspace. 

"What is that...?" she whispers, and Cassian feels his gut clench.

"It has been there for an hour now, maybe it's a meteorite?" someone suggests. He can now see civilians staring up at the thing, too, from the streets, from doorways and windows.

Then, a bright green light descends from the object and-

* * *

Cassian gasps and stares at the underside of a hammock, his heart pounding in his chest and his mind desperately trying to catch up. He sits up, shaking, and the room is blessedly empty while he stares at his - at Jyn's - hands, she's alive, she's alive, _she's alive..._

Cassian can't stop the tears from falling, Jyn is _alive. How?_

He remembers the flashes, flashes of her life, everything he's seen, and he remembers that last one. There has been talk of a weapon the Empire is building, a weapon to end the rebellion and maybe? This was it? _According to the holonet, it was a mining accident,_ Shara's words echo in his head, but who is in charge of these articles? Could the Empire wipe out a whole city and then pretend it to be a mining accident?

Apparently, it can.

Cassian pushes Jyn's feet into her boots and rushes her body through the door into the hallway, hurrying through the catacombs and somehow, somehow he knows it's today. He needs to make it count.

He bursts into Saw's war room, finds it empty, rushes forward. He finds Maia in the mess, devouring yellowish mush with fruit. He steps up to her and announces, without preamble:

"We need to evacuate the city and this base, or we're all going to die today."

And this is _so_ not him, he is usually sublte, careful, but it's Jyn who counts now and besides, he has no time to be subtle.

Maia stares up at him, spoon halfway to her mouth, frozen in the motion. "What...?"

"We need to evacuate _kriffing_ Jedha, because the Empire is going to blast us all into oblivion!"

When Maia still doesn't move, he grabs her hand and drags her out of the mess. "Come on, I have a plan..."

* * *

They stand before Saw and Cassian feels twelve years old again. The man towers above him, his expression absolutely _livid._

"What kind of nonsense is this, Jyn?" he thunders and Cassian flinches. 

"It's the truth, we need to get into the city and get the people out!" he shouts back, irritated, but at the same time not surprised. And why should Saw believe him - Jyn - anyway? He has no evidence, he's just turned up this morning with an outrageous story and a plan. But, it seems, Saw doesn't have enough trust in Jyn after all. 

"Saw, we're all going to _die,_ I've seen it," he hisses, anger now coursing through Jyn's body and he can feel the urge to hit something, wondering if the feeling is his or if it's Jyn's.

"Enough!" the man roars and that's that.

Defeated and angry, he leaves the room, Maia at his heels. 

"So... you said you had a plan?" she says and he could have kissed her if he wasn't- not important right now.

* * *

Maia still looks at him like Jyn's gone mad but she followed him so far, so he thinks this counts for something. They're hunkering down in a side alley across from the Imperial communications building in Jedha City. Cassian knows the protocols of these installations and without his own body and the right wardrobe he's never going to just walk inside, so he ruled that option out already. The Partisans have pilfered a few Imperial disguises over the years but none of them fit on Jyn's short frame and Maia, with her scar through her brow and across her chin and her bushy black hair, would be too remarkable. 

No, they're going to have to do this both loudly and quietly. 

They sneak away from the building and into the old center of the city. Baze and Chirrut and a few other former Guardians are blessedly more receptive of Cassian's warning. He doesn't know how, but the blind monk tilts his head at Cassian and smiles serenely.

"Oh, it's you again, I haven't seen you in a while."

And then he claims to believe Cassian and somehow the other monks take his opinion at face value. Finally some luck on Cassian's part. He lays out his plan to the Guardians and they disappear in every direction of the city. 

Maia and he make their way back to the Imperial station and try to tell people to leave the city, board a shuttle off world if they can, flee into the desert, as far away from Jedha City as they can. No one believes them. Most shake their heads (some their fists) at them and continue on their way.

Halfway to their target, Cassian suddenly stops. Maia stops too, a few steps away and looks back at him. She approaches slowly and lays a gentle hand on Jyn's shoulder.

"Jyn, what brought this all on, anyway?" she wonders. "Does this have anything to do with Saw and your trip to the Alliance yesterday?"

And Cassian starts. _What?_ "I was on Yavin?" His heart starts pounding in his chest, but before he can absorb the meaning of this, or make sense of it all, he feels a pull.

He turns, back towards the city center, and all of a sudden he _knows_ where to go. "Maia, carry on with the plan, I'll catch up!" he shouts at her, already halfway down the street.

He skirts citizens left and right, ducks behind market stalls in order to avoid Imperial gazes and after a few breathless minutes of running, the ruins of the Dome of Deliverance come into view. He speeds up and barely manages to catch himself before scrambling through the opening.

* * *

Jyn blinks awake slowly, as if she's rising out of a deep sleep. The first thing she sees are thousands of little lights, sparkling in every colour she can think of. She turns her head and sees glass stones on the walls, feels smooth stones and coarse dust underneath her fingers. She raises a hand to her face, rubbing away an itchy feeling and starts.

She sits up and looks down at Cassian's hands and legs. 

"What is Cassian doing here?"

Still a little disoriented but determined to find out, she scrambles up and out through the long tunnel to the surface. She blinks against the glaring sun, stopping abruptly, eyes wide, heart hammering in her - in Cassian's - chest.

She's standing in the middle of an enormous crater, spanning from the rough center of Jedha city to where Saw's catacombs used to be. The realisation hits her suddenly. It's gone.

Her city, her home, as much as it had been, everything's gone. Her comrades, her friends, Saw. The people of Jedha, the merchants, the children and the Guardians. All gone.

She sinks to her knees, shaking.

* * *

Jyn is looking out of the ship onto the very green surface of the planet below. Her heart is pounding, has been since she boarded the shuttle on Jedha this morning and has about reached the point where she doesn't think it can possibly pound any harder. 

They touch down on Yavin 4 and immediately there are two soldiers to escort them. Saw growls at them, but Jyn doesn't even notice. She is busy sweeping the crowd, the sentients hurrying through the hangar, tinkering with their spaceships and carrying equipment around. The hangar's bustling, though it's not the frantic bustling of we-need-to-be-off-to-attack-the-Empire/save/support-a-rebelgroup-somewhere-right-now-immediately and more the we-have-things-to-do-and-places-to-be-and-ships-to-keep-ready kind.

They're being led into the imposing war room of Rebel Alliance and while all eyes are on Saw's entrance (including those of their personal guides) Jyn takes her chance and slinks away. She hurries down the corridor and traces her steps from when she was Cassian. Her first stop is the mess, but she hadn't really expected it to be so easy. She doesn't even know if he's on base.

The mess is not busy, it's just after breakfast, but never one to let good opportunities slide, she snatches a handful of berries from an unattended plate. She searches the hangars next, avoiding the obvious place to look, but somehow knocking on his quarters feels too... private. Personal. Which is laughable, really, because she has literally been in his body and if that isn't the most private place you can be she doesn't know either.

She walks the halls for what feels like hours, looking for his face, the flash of dark, sharp eyes, the gleam of the sun in his dark hair, filtering in through the open hangar doors. Once she thinks she sees a man in a flightsuit with a ponytail, but as she hurries nearer it's just a string of cable the pilot has thrown over his shoulder.

The clock ticks and Jyn finds herself - finally running out of time and options - in front of his quarters' door. Her heart is pounding it's hardest rhythm yet and she sees her hand trembling as she raises it to knock. She hesitates, taking a deep breath, and raps her knuckles on the door. (She could just slice the lock, of course, but that might be a bit on the wrong side of intrusive.)

Nothing. No response, no sound from behind the door. No surprised Cassian appearing before her, his eyes tracing her face disbelievingly, a smile breaking out on his features, no-

"You are not allowed to be here," a voice comes from a few steps away. It is one of the guides, a Mirialan with a hard face, who had escorted her and Saw to the meeting with the Alliance leaders. 

"I'm looking for Lieutenant Andor," Jyn says, before she can think things through. "Do you know if he's on base?"

"Even if I knew, you have no clearance to any sort of information about Alliance personnel," the Mirialan rattles off as if he's learned some sort of guidelines by heart.

Jyn takes a last hopeless look at the door and follows her guide. 

She is quiet when the soldier places her back in Saw's care, silently scolding herself for being so naive to think she could really just walk into the vast Alliance base and he'll be standing there as if he waited for her. And even if she had met him, would he even have been happy? Or would he have been angry with her for coming to see him? Her feeble backup plan to sell it for a coincidence looks impressively stupid right now, as does her racing pulse all through the day. 

She should be relieved that she hasn't run into him, embarrassed herself and probably him, too, but instead she just feels empty. Saw doesn't ask where she's been, either sensing her mood or not caring particularly, and that's absolutely fine with her.

They retrace their journey through the hallways and then the hangar, one of their guards leading the way, the other trailing after Jyn, undoubtedly making sure she won't 'get lost' again. 

And then she sees him.

He's standing to the side of the hangar, Kay beside him, silently staring at a datapad in his hand while a crew is loading crates off the cargo shuttle before him and Jyn's heart is back to beating frantically, a shiver rolling through her, from head to toe. She's started towards him before she even knows what she's doing, doesn't even think about her guard, who might as well pull a blaster on her now, she walks up to Cassian from his side. He hasn't noticed her yet, neither has Kay and Jyn stands beside him for a moment, just staring up at him and drinking him in.

He looks tired, but, ridiculously, also younger than she has ever seen him. His gaze is focused on his pad and he makes no move to acknowledge her, so deep in his data is he. Jyn thinks she might be trembling again, but it's hard to say when she feels so light and giddy and also scared. But after that empty feeling of not meeting him she just can't walk away again. 

"Um, hey, Cassian," she says quietly, not even caring how lame that sounds. 

He looks at her then and Jyn has the feeling he looks right through her. Her heart sinks.

"Are you here to help with the cargo?" he asks distractedly. His attention is back on his pad already and it's like a bucket of ice cold water has just been dumped over her head. Jyn's shoulders sag. She stares at him, trying to find an explanation, anything to make her stop feeling so untethered. But there's nothing, it is him, she is sure of that.

"Don't you... remember me?" she whispers.

He looks back at her and something in her eyes must give him pause. _I bet something does,_ she thinks, while working hard not to let the tears prickling at the back of her eyes fall. They lock eyes and what she sees in his face breaks her heart faster than his words can.

"Who are you?" he asks, his face completely blank, there's no recognition there, not the faintest trace of _anything._ It's his spy face.

"I'm... sorry," she almost gasps through the lump in her throat and turns on her heel, marching back towards where Saw is arguing with their guides, one of whom is pointing at Jyn (not with a blaster, though). She reaches them and Saw - for once - displays some sort of fatherly protection when he puts his heavy arm around her bony shoulders and guides her towards their ship.

Jyn doesn't see Cassian tracking her movements, doesn't see the frown forming on his face or how he pushes his datapad into Kay's hands and first steps, then walks, and then outright sprints through the hangar towards Saw's ship. 

"Wait!" he calls as the boarding ramp starts to lift and he has no idea why he even bothered, doesn't know who this girl is, but the way she looked at him, the way she said his name, the fact that she even _knows_ his name... "Wait!" he calls again. "What's your name?"

And, incredibly, the girl turns around, her bright green eyes widen as she sees him and she slips something over her head and tosses it to him, shouting

"It's Jyn!"

as the ramp closes.

* * *

Cassian stops at the tunnel entrance to the hidden room and reaches for the crystal at Jyn's neck. It's not there. That's how he got it. He's met Jyn, even before... she came to see him on Yavin years ago... but _how?_

And for her it was just yesterday.

His heart is racing, his fist shaking - how is that even possible? - and then there's this unexplainable _pull._ He turns around, back towards the entrance of the building and starts walking, scrambling back through the entrance.

"JYN?" he shouts and doesn't even wonder how he can feel her there.

* * *

"Cassian...?" Jyn whispers, still crouching on the ground in the middle of all that's left of Jedha City. She reaches for the kyber involuntarily, only mildly surprised when she actually finds it around Cassian's neck.

She scrambles up, takes a deep breath and shouts "CASSIAN!"

* * *

He stops, turns, and there she is.

Jyn.

Looking at him with her wide green eyes as if _he's_ the ghost. He doesn't even have time to marvel at the fact that he's in his own body again and finally, _finally,_ sees Jyn before him.

Very slowly, both apparently shaken by the moment, they raise their hands, trembling, and touch their fingertips together and neither can really believe it when they touch, fully expecting them to just swish through the other's hands like smoke.

And then Cassian is wrapping his arms around her and she can't remember the last time - yes, _Stardust_ \- one of her arms around the small of his back, the other cupping his shoulderblade and she breathes him in. 

"I've wanted to do that for some time," he whispers into her ear, his neck bent and his face pressed into her shoulder, one arm mirroring hers around the small of her back and the other clutching her to him at the back of her neck. He feels her shake slightly and means to pull back when she tightens her hold around him. Like she never means to let go.

They stand there for what feels like ages and eventually Cassian remembers, the crater, the city, doomed, the green light.

He pulls back but slides his hands up to her face, cupping her cheeks and she grips his arms, their foreheads touching.

"Jyn," he whispers, "How could you even come to see me when I hadn't even met you yet?"

"I don't know, but I'm glad I did," she whispers back. 

He opens his eyes and finds her staring back at him, a beautiful smile on her face. 

"Jyn, there are some things you have to do..." Cassian tells her and they both look up. There's the faint beginning of a shadow in the sky above the city.

"It's here," Jyn says and Cassian tells her his plan. 

"You've got this Jyn, I know you can do it," he tells her and his face is so open and honest she can only believe him.

"How will I ever find you again?" Jyn asks.

"We will find each other. I can feel it," Cassian promises and she can feel his conviction and nods. "Oh, I think this belongs to you."

Cassian reaches around his neck and pulls off her necklace with the kyber crystal. He puts it carefully around her neck and lets it drop to her collarbone.

He blinks and Jyn is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this is almost done... D:


	7. Before The Ground Gives Way

Jyn blinks and Cassian is gone.

She is standing amidst the usual rubble around the Dome of Deliverance and the bustle of the street, clutching her kyber crystal in her hand. And even though she still can't make sense of what just happened, how she could have met Cassian before he knew her, how she is even still _alive,_ she takes a step and then the next and in the next moment she's running, dashing around civilians, ducking troopers and _hoping,_ with all her mind, that she's not too late.

She meets Chirrut and Baze at the temple again, who are trying a bit fruitlessly to get people to listen to them. The problem is though, she reflects sadly, that people have stopped listening to them years ago. Even the handful of families who let their children play at the temple, who come there for the chance of food, are too scared of the Imperial presence to act. Although, since the destruction of the Temple, the Dome and the Paths of Judgement the Guardians have suffered the loss of those who used to _believe._ They lost part of their credibility, due to the oppression through the Empire and because some of them dared to fight back (the public had to shoulder the consequences, and eventually, the Guardians stopped causing trouble, unlike Saw, who probably couldn't stop even if he wanted to).

Jyn skids to a halt in front of her two friends and immediately, she feels two strong hands on her shoulders.

"What do you need, little sister?" Baze asks in his deep, comforting voice, speaking - for once - before Chirrut.

"Please help Maia, she knows the plan," Jyn pleads, while inside her gut is clenching. It's Cassian's plan and while she trusts both Maia and the Guardians to make it work, she simply feels bad for leaving them to do all the work. But she needs to take one more chance and make Saw believe her. She can't just let him sit there in ignorance and let all her comrades die.

"May the Force of others be with you, little Star," Chirrut says simply and they both squeeze her shoulders. 

"May the Force be with you," she answers, because the past weeks (especially the past few days) have shaken whatever she did believe in and today they all need all the help they can get and if praying to some ancient force will get them there, she'll do it.

Then she's off, down the streets, and oh, how convenient that she's so small and can weave through any crowd without much effort, elbowing sentients out of the way if necessary and ignoring outraged cries. She looks left and right every few steps, looking for - there! A speeder bike, left carelessly in front of a coffee shop.

She races towards it, jumps on the saddle, pries off a panel beneath the handlebar and sticks her clever fingers into the mass of cables. A moment later, the door to the shop jingles open, a voice crying "Hey!", but in that instant the bike gives a loud purr and Jyn grips the bars, revving the gears, and she's off and away before the cursing Rodian can snag at her vest.

She steers the bike to the nearest exit from the city - the nearest official one, anyway, because even if the secret tunnel is nearer she'll never get the bike through there and without the bike she'll never reach Saw in time.

Jyn ignores the troopers at the entrance to the city who see her coming and point their blasters, but either they're lousy shots (they usually are), or she has some kind of an invisible protector today because their shots miss her. She races through the opening in the enormous city walls and straight into the desert.

Just then, multiple loud explosions resound inside the city walls and Jyn imagines that were she standing on solid ground, it might be shaking. Then she hears a loud voice, sounding from every single public speaker throughout the city, basically telling the citizens to run (and oh, she wishes the Emperor himself could see the irony of all those Imperial installations serving her purpose now, a dirty orphan rebel).

She revvs the speeder's handles again and dashes away.

The sun is bearing down on her but she doesn't dare lose precious seconds by slowing down to wrap her scarf around her head. It's all she can do to keep the sand out of her eyes, which are watering from the warm air wheezing past her. The ride to the catacombs seems way too long for her taste, but she gets there, turns off the speeder bike (someone might still need it later) and dashes into the ruins. 

Partisans scramble out of her way when they see her coming, possibly because of her determined face and no-nonsense attitude, possibly because she must look like a wreck, full of sand, hair a mess, sweaty and shaking. She walks straight into the war room and finds him, Katooni and Zatt at his side, talking, and Jyn doesn't stop, she crosses the room, rips the cloth from the window and points at the sky.

The conversation ceases and _something_ about her must be projecting the importance of the situation, she has no idea, but Saw glances at her and then steps forward to look out of the window. 

The round, white object is just visible and Jyn is shaking now, from anger (because she knows - how? Doesn't matter - that Saw didn't listen to Cassian) and from fear, _because there's no time!_

"This thing is gonna blast us all to the many _hells_ if we don't act now," she says vehemently, her heart thundering in her chest, her voice so much more steady than she feels right now, her eyes boring into Saw's and she can see the exact moment he believes her at last.

* * *

In the end it is pure, unadulterated chaos.

Maia talks the whole city into scrambling for their spaceships, for shuttles off planet, those who own speeders or other on-planet transports are advised to flee into the desert. Sentients are running everywhere, the troopers, seeing as the warning comes from their own installation, listen, too. They're not particularly helpful, most just trying to save their own skins, not stopping to help the fallen Twi'lek up or offer the spare seat on their speeder bike to the aged Togruta.

A few trooper speeders are overrun and seized by a few courageous people and used to transport those who cannot walk. There are citizens who simply run, not looking if anyone might be in need of assistance but there also those who stop and hoist a fallen child onto a speeder. 

The spaceports of Jedha are overrun, the people's need to survive greater than the fear of blasters. Meanwhile, the few Imperial checkpoints and buildings are burning merrily in the chaos, no one even stopping to try and put out the fire with the threat looming beneath. It is a bit ironic that the actual threat, looming above, is not even being noticed.

"Citizens of Jedha," Maia's voice sounds one more time through the speakers, "there has been an accident in one of our kyber mining installations, causing explosions all over the city. We advise you to leave the walls of the city immediately. Those who are in possession of landspeeders or bikes please travel into the desert immediately, as far as you can go. Owners of ships and shuttles, we ask you take on as many people as your vessel will admit and leave the atmosphere. May the Force be with you."

Her words are followed by a scrambling noise and a short interference. A minute later, a shadow slips out of the Imperial installation just as the building blows up.

* * *

Saw sends his fleet of spaceships to Jedha City, to pick up as many people as possible and fly them to safety.

The rest of the Partisans start to flee into the desert, leaving the catacombs behind, a few, led by Jyn, grab speeders and race towards the masses streaming out of the city. They hurry to pick up as many sentients that are traveling on foot as they can and try to get them to safety while in the sky the white object gets clearer and brighter and Jyn starts shaking with the memory of what is coming.

There's nothing to it but run (and _hope_ that they're far enough away, out of reach) when the green light flashes and the city explodes.

* * *

The Empire will tell the public that the ancient holy city of NiJedha has been destroyed in a mining accident. The Emperor will openly mourn the loss of such a historic place, the select thousands operating the secret weapon sworn to secrecy (and who would believe them, anyway?) and secretly celebrating their new toy.

They will learn later, much later, that there are survivors, survivors who are brave enough to spread the word of a "planet killer", setting in motion a wild chase for the truth across the galaxy.

On Jedha, there isn't time to save everybody though, and hundreds die that day. But thousands are saved.

* * *

Sometimes, Jyn wakes up with the feeling of someone holding her tight fading.

* * *

More often than not, Cassian wakes up with a memory of bright green eyes and a pair of small, strong hands around his back vanishing from his mind.

* * *

Neither of them can explain what happened that day on Jedha, neither tries when asked. They hold the memories of their meeting close to their hearts, like a secret, like a small creature that needs to be cradled, protected. 

Cassian tries to hold onto the memories of her, the memories of being her, of her heartbeat against his that one wonderful time in the ruins of Jedha City. He promises himself that he'll find her, wherever she is, because he knows, he can feel it in his bones, that she's out there.

When he leaves Jedha after that fateful meeting, he knows Jyn is long gone. There's no one there, no one came back to rebuild the city. 

He searches for her for a while, between missions, never ceasing to look until one day, he can't remember what he's looking for. He knows that something is missing, he yearns for it, but he can't put his finger on what it is. So he busies himself with his work, flying across the galaxy, a shadow, doing the dirty work for a rebellion he's served almost his whole life.

Sometimes, he'll see a flash of green eyes or light gleaming on dark brown hair and he'll stop and turn around, trying to grasp at the fleeting memories, the feeling pulling at his soul.

* * *

Saw Gerrera's partisans leave Jedha and resettle on Wrea, but Jyn doesn't have time to make herself at home or construct a plan to look for Cassian. She travels to Tamsye Prime with Saw and a small group of Partisans. They run into a fight between the locals and Imperial forces and Zatt is killed in the crossfire, the rest of Saw's people barely escaping with their lives.

They hunker down in an abandoned building and Saw gives her a knife and tells her to wait in the bunker till daylight.

He doesn't come back.

Jyn finally fights her way out of the situation and boards a ship as a stowaway. She doesn't try to get back to the Partisans after tracking down one of Saw's sources and learning that her (now former) comrades have moved on and are wreaking havoc again elsewhere. Without her. The knowledge that Saw abandoned her weighs heavily on her soul. She travels the galaxy alone for years, always looking, first for a young man with dark hair and sharp eyes, maybe in the company of a droid. 

After a while it's no more than a feeling, a yearning (for someone, _anyone,_ she tells herself, because while she is strong and hard and can get by (barely) on her own, she is still lonely, sometimes, and even though once in a while she finds someone to be lonely _with,_ for a short time, she never trusts anyone enough to make it more than a short time). She tells herself to stop looking for whatever her heart is searching for and every time her face hardens and her feelings are pushed down, her hand goes to the kyber crystal at her collarbone.

She is still unconsciously looking when she's finally - after multiple false leads and failed attempts - able to make contact with the Rebel Alliance. She is given coordinates and a codephrase and spends her last filched credits on the journey to a bustling little planet where the default weather setting seems to be sheets of rain pouring from the grey skies. She wonders who the poor sod will be, who has the unpleasant task to pick her up here. She's drenched by the time she finds the place, a bench across from a small café and why couldn't they have her wait _inside_ the café? It looks warm and cozy and maybe she could even afford a cup of something hot with the few credits she lifted off a Human on her way here.

She's glaring at the little shop, shivering from the cool air and the rain, when she sees a figure emerging from the end of the street and she can't explain why they're drawing her eyes, there are other people crossing in front of her, but she watches the person approach slowly, watches them falter and hesitate a few meters away, her heart starting to pound in her chest.

She meets the man's eyes and can't look away from his slightly confused gaze turning surprised and disbelieving, slowly stepping up to her. He looks tired but slowly, a hesitant smile forms on his lips.

She touches her crystal unconsciously and suddenly she remembers him.

* * *

Cassian jumps onto the chance to go on an easy pickup mission, because it will bring him a few days of blissful, much needed quiet after the last mission. Kay is with him, but the droid luckily doesn't pout when Cassian tells him to leave him alone for a bit. 

He relishes the silent companionship of their small vessel.

The planet where they scheduled the pickup to happen is miserable, but Cassian barely notices. He weaves through the sparse foot traffic and down one of the quieter streets when he sees a small figure standing at the place his possible new recruit is supposed to be.

She is short, dressed too lightly and drenched to the bone, her brown hair plastered to her head in a dark mess. Her arms are hugging her torso and her shoulders are bunched up, her head ducked.

He draws nearer and when she looks up, his heart starts pounding. His steps falter and through the sheets of rain he can now see a pair of wide green eyes looking at him and memory comes rushing back at him.

* * *

They stare at each other for a moment, both speechless, brains jump-starting after crashing while trying to process what happened.

Their hands raise simultaneously, fingertips brushing and Cassian makes a sound that might be a disbelieving little laugh and Jyn can't fault him for it, because the feeling's mutual and she grips his hand to entwine their fingers, eyes never leaving his.

Jyn has no idea how long they stand there, in the pouring rain, staring into each other's eyes, drinking each other in. (Maybe a few seconds, maybe lightyears.) Maybe they're afraid to shatter the moment and lose each other again, but she can feel his hands as solid and real as she is herself and smiles at him.

Cassian's eyes light up at her smile and he doesn't know who of them moves first, but then his hand is in her soaking wet hair, his other hand cupping her face, feeling her pulse pound at her throat, while one of her hands winds around his neck and into the short hair there and the other slides up his chest and comes to rest over his wildly beating heart.

A giddy, happy little laugh escapes her and then they're kissing, in the middle of the street in the pouring rain, like they've been waiting a lifetime for it.

When they part after a while, Cassian rests his forehead against hers. She watches his eyes open and catch on hers and he smiles.

"Can I buy you a caf?" he asks quietly and Jyn wants to laugh, wants to cry because that's her prompt, the sentence she's supposed to wait for, and oh how long she waited for it.

"I prefer tea," she answers and settles on grinning at him, because how on point is this? She _does_ prefer tea.

He grins back, takes a deep breath and drops his hands from her face and hair, making her release him hesitantly, but he doesn't step back. He runs his hand down her arm, over her hand and entwines their fingers again.

"Welcome home, Jyn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I regret to announce — this is The End. I am going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell."
> 
> Oof. If this stupid pandemic has done one good thing, it's giving me so much time to draw and read and write my first multichapter in what feels like 394 years.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented, kudo-ed or just read this. <3  
> Catch me over on tumblr @mitdemadlerimherzen if you like, or don't, I'm not your mum.
> 
> Super special thanks again to moranice, for proofreading and being my test audience. And for generally supporting me and being my friend. Love you! <3


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